


Couper la Poire en Deux

by Serindrana



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:20:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serindrana/pseuds/Serindrana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Loghain's sacrifice and her discharge from Maric's Shield, Cauthrien hits rock bottom. Luckily, a certain assassin has been sent to keep an eye on her - and to put her to good use.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Post-game, set in the same 'verse as the upcoming fic _A Story Not About Wars or Heroes_. The Warden is one Georgiana Cousland - you'll be seeing more of her in other fic. :)
> 
> The title translates to, literally, _cut the pear in two_ \- an idiom for compromise, or meeting halfway. All the "Orlesian" in the fic is being translated and/or checked by [Adrienne](http://soupconneux.tumblr.com/) and [IrishLassie](http://irishlassie.deviantart.com/). All the "Antivan" is being translated by [Smaragdina](http://smaragdina.livejournal.com/).
> 
> Thank you so much to [Smaragdina](http://smaragdina.livejournal.com/) for being my beta!

The first time he comes to her, it's the middle of the day and she's still in bed.

There are three knocks, then silence, and all she can do is groan and pull her thin blanket up over her head. She hears the soft clicking of picks in the lock of her front door less than a minute later, and then the soft creak of the hinges. No footfalls. She presses deeper into her straw-filled mattress, wondering just who has come to kill her. She's at least been saved the indignity of being dragged out into the sun for execution, from the sound of things (or lack thereof) - no guards, no heavy footed executioner. Instead, it's a thief or assassin, come to finish the job that the king started three weeks ago. At least it will be a quiet end, even if it's not the end she ever wanted.

Finally, she hears something- the soft stretch of leather as somebody crouches next to the bed. The faintest sound of glass being lifted off of wood - empty glass. How many bottles did she go through last night? How quickly is she running out of money, drinking alone instead of at a tavern? She doesn't remember, and doesn't rightly care.

Loghain Mac Tir is dead, and she isn't.

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She was supposed to die defending him, fighting at his side, _being there_. Instead, she ran away. She let the Warden talk her down with all of her fears and her grief at her lord's fall from grace. She slunk away into the shadows. She'd followed the army to Redcliffe and back, she'd fought in the great battle for Denerim, but she'd never seen Loghain again except from afar. And then he'd died.

He had died a hero, at least.

But he'd left her behind.

The assassin is taking his time and she shifts as nervousness cuts through even the thick fog clouding her head. She almost pulls down the covers to peek, but he speaks first, and she knows the accent is familiar.

"Your tastes are more expensive than I would have expected," he drawls. She can feel him settle his weight against the frame of her bed as he rolls the something, probably whatever botle he liberated from the floor, between his hands. "Are these all from last night?"

She doesn't respond. He blows across the top of the bottle until he finds a note that seems to please him.

"I must admit," he begins again, "I did not expect to find you like this. Lady Cousland is a rather perceptive woman, yes?"

She still doesn't offer him anything. She waits, because she's finally placed the voice- Zevran Arainai. The Crow that Loghain hired what seems now like such a long time ago. The Crow whom she can easily imagine toying with his prey, trying to trip them up until they fall before his blades or to his poisons, utterly ruined. She's close already, but she doesn't want to give him that satisfaction.

"She was quite emphatic that I come to check in on you, you see," he's saying, as if he doesn't need a reply at all. "Told me, 'Zevran, it pains me to send you from my side, but another needs you!', and how am I to refuse such an exhortation? She is a force of nature, after all. It's best to go wherever the wind drives you, yes? And Lady Cousland, she is nothing if not a gale wind." Zevran sighs, tapping his fingers on the glass in his hands. "And so, I am here. And you are here! I do so love succeeding at missions. It makes me feel all warm and toasty inside."

She's still waiting for the kill when she hears him stand up. He's stopped trying to muffle the sounds of his movements, and she can hear the floorboards groan beneath him. There's a darker shadow for a moment, the sound of creaking leathers, and the faint scent of some sort of oil as he leans over her, but then he straightens up and retreats a few steps.

"Well, you appear to be alive, no matter how much you're trying to hide it. I'll leave you to your bottles, I think." He sets the one he's been holding down with a _clunk_ , but doesn't move away immediately. There are no footsteps. "... A parting gift, though, Ser Cauthrien," he murmurs, and she tenses for the fall of metal into her-

And is greeted only by the painfully bright light of day as he pulls open the heavy curtains of the room. She groans, loudly, as he leaves as silently as he came.

\--

The second time he visits her, it's early evening and she's sitting on the edge of her bed, in clothing five days old, staring at the rows of empty glass she's arrayed against the far wall.

She's out of booze.

She's contemplating the effort necessary to drag herself out of her little rented room and down the street to the tavern when there's a single knock, followed quickly by the sound of lockpicks. Zevran doesn't try to hide himself and strides in with a grin.

"Out of bed already? It would seem you're making progress!" he says as she stares at him blankly. She doesn't feel anything for a long moment, and he keeps her gaze with his lips twisted into a smile as she tries to process, through the now all-to-familiar throb of her head, what he's doing here again.

"Just kill me already," she finally croaks. There's a surprisingly sharp flash of anger that goes through her, following on her words, and she grits her teeth. It makes the pounding intensify.

His bark of laughter makes her flinch. "Kill you? Ah, Ser Cauthrien! I am not here to kill you." He _tsks_ , chuckling and taking up a spot leaning against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, . "If I were here to kill you, you'd already be dead. No, no, I told you- the Lady Cousland asked me to check in on you."

"Check in." Her voice is hoarse from lack of use and the burn of moonshine. It's been a week since his last visit, a week spent living between oblivion and the past, just like the week before it. If she tries to think back, she's not entirely sure how she came to be here. She remembers the Landsmeet too clearly. She remembers Loghain's death, too, and the crushing knowledge that it was done, whatever she thought could have been. It was over, whatever had been held in how he'd grabbed her wrist at Ostagar, how he'd relied on her the entire past year more than ever before. What she doesn't remember quite as clearly is the day when she'd knelt before the throne of King Alistair Theirin and received her 'honorable discharge' from the army, from Maric's Shield. She doesn't remember every detail of that moment, or the long moments that followed, the days and weeks where she'd wandered in the direction of home, to the west, only to find out that her father and brother had been conscripted into fighting the civil war, and had died there. Her mother and cousins had been dragged off by the darkspawn before the Blight was ended. She doesn't remember much of that time, except that she'd thought _How_? so many times.

How hadn't she known? How hadn't she stopped it? How was it that she was the only one left alive, the girl who'd run away to fight for the Hero of River Dane, who'd worshipped the ground he'd walked on, who'd stood by him when he tried to protect all of Ferelden?

How was it that _she_ was left to wander, alone, in the aftermath?

"Check in," he repeats, pulling her back to herself. She stares at him with a wavering, flinching gaze, and he returns it with his own, bland and patient. "You look remarkably horrible."

She hasn't looked in the mirror. There isn't one in the hovel she's living in. There's barely a fireplace, and she's thought, in her more lucid moments, that she's lucky that it's summer. There's really only a bed and a table with one chair. The only times she's pulled herself out of the room these last two weeks have been to get food or booze or stagger to the outhouse. The room reeks of stale alcohol, vomit, sweat, and grief - though that last she isn't sure if she's just hallucinating or not.

She doesn't know how sallow her skin has become, how dull, how matted her hair is and how sunken her eyes are. She doesn't particularly care. His words don't make her flush or turn away. She simply stares at him.

"You've checked in," she says, flatly. "Now go."

"No, no," he sighs, shaking his head. "I can't! You see, I received word from our esteemed Warden this morning - I wrote to her of your rather lumpen existence after my last visit. She wants me now to, ah, I believe she put it as ' _keep a fucking eye on her before she kills herself_ ', yes. She's really quite concerned."

Cauthrien snorts, bowing her head and closing her eyes. "Where was her _concern_ when her puppet king took the only thing I had left?" Her bitterness, her words, echo Loghain's in feeling if not in substance. During the Landsmeet, she'd stood close enough to the door to hear his shouts, his pride, his rage, his defeat. She's repeated them so often in her mind, mourning and trying to understand, that she finds herself speaking like him even more than before.

"Oh, I think at the time she was more concerned with getting the queen's skirts up," Zevran says, laughing. "And," he adds "I think she expected you to be stronger than this. But court life appears to be settling down, and now she's handing out jobs behind the king's back. It is good, it would appear, to be the queen's lover."

Cauthrien glances up, then looks away again, shaking her head and sitting back so she can lean against the wall. "I don't need a minder."

"Alas, I'm under orders." He shrugs. "I was _going_ to sneak in and take your bottles this time, but they're all empty, it seems! And you're awake. I couldn't simply sneak in and out without a chance to look at that pretty face of yours. It would've been a crime!"

"Breaking and entering," she supplies, voice gone flat once more.

"Ah, yes, of course." Zevran grins. "But. I take my oaths very seriously, Ser Cauthrien, and I do not appreciate the thought of waking one night to a very angry Warden bellowing a war cry before she takes my head off with that massive sword of hers. You'll understand?"

"You betrayed the teyrn."

"I _failed_ the teyrn, and then I took new employment," he corrects. "Besides, I did not owe him a blood debt. Nor did he pay _me_ to do the job."

"If you'd _done_ your job-"

"Ferelden would be overrun. And if I recall correctly, Georgiana did a fine job of persuading you to step asi-"

"Shut _up_!" Cauthrien growls as she surges to her feet, body shaking from the effort not to lunge any further forward. She wants to fly at him, grab up one of the bottles, smash it over his head. She was never the sort to get in bar fights. She's always been controlled, strong, worthy of being Loghain's right hand. But it's been a long month, a long year, and raging sounds like the best idea she's ever had.

Zevran must see it in her eyes, because he holds up his hands and walks backwards towards the door. "Of course, of course. I suppose I'll just leave you to your bottles, then." He pauses as he pulls open the door, then shakes his head. "It's a shame, though. I have a feeling the teyrn would be disappointed."

And then he's gone, leaving her to sink to her knees and pound the floor and sob without tears.

\--

The third time he walks into her home, it's the dead of night and he's wearing Loghain's armor.

She doesn't know where he got it from, only that even so drunk she can barely stand without effort and with only the light of two candles that have burned down to stubs, she recognizes it instantly. She knows the planes and curves of it, knows the exact color of the metal, the precise way it reflects light, and she isn't so far gone that she can't tell that it's not Loghain wearing it. She jumps from the bed and falls on him with a shriek of rage, trying to hit him, pry the metal off of him, _hurt_ him for _daring_ to wear the Hero of River Dane's plate.

He laughs and easily pushes her off of him, rolling her onto the floor and pinning her there. Her head swims. Her vision blurs with tears and the whole room is cast in orange and gold from the candles. Lines of light crisscross her vision as she sobs, the sounds thin and broken. She thrashes and he keeps her pinned, though he's made awkward by the armor that is far too large for him.

"Why- _why_ -" she shouts, then whispers, the word more a pained, abstracted sound. She shakes, her chest heaving with breath, and he holds her down the whole time, sitting on her upper thighs to keep her pinned, hands on her elbows, body stretched out along hers. He's mocking her, teasing her, trying to _break_ her. He's wearing Loghain's armor and he's pressing up against her. He knows. He _knows_ that she's always wanted the crush and push, and he's mocking her by giving it to her, except that it's not right because it's a little elven assassin in _Loghain's armor_.

"I wanted to test a theory," he says. "And I wanted to get your blood pumping. Our Warden told me to _get a reaction. Figure her out._ And a reaction I have!"

" _You bastard_ -"

"Get her _fighting_ again, she said!" Zevran grins, and she can't remember how to break this sort of hold. Her head's spinning from anger and grief and booze, and she knows she can get him off of her, he's not that much heavier than she is and she's built for power, not agility - she should be able to move him. But the tears make it hard to remember how.

"Get the _fuck_ off of me-"

He leans closer in, his weight now mostly supported by where her chest meets Loghain's plate, rocking forward so that he can nearly touch noses with her. He grins. "Why?" he asks, with feigned nonchalance. "The Warden and I thought you'd appreciate being able to touch this armor again."

He's unbalanced himself enough that even as uncoordinated as she is, she can force her legs up, lift him off of the ground, and twist. He curses as he falls to the side, and she follows him, rolling on top of him once more. She pulls her arms free of his hands, and he flinches as if expecting her fist to come towards his head, but instead she begins to fumble with the buckles and clasps holding the armor on him. She's done this before, taken this armor off, placed it back on. She'd helped Loghain prepare the night of the Battle of Ostagar, and so many other nights besides. She knows this armor, knows it as well as she knows her own, and even unsteady, her fingers begin to fly.

Zevran lies still beneath her, watching, and she thinks she can make out a flash of white as he grins up at her. She ignores it and keeps working. The pauldrons fall away, the breastplate, the gauntlets, the elbow guards. She pulls it from him with angry, clutching hands, then sets it reverently aside and returns to attack the next piece.

She knows he's letting her do this, letting her undress him, but she's almost angry enough at him for daring to wear this priceless polished metal that his clear enjoyment of how she bares the padding and linens he's wearing underneath stirs nothing more. But as she pulls the armor from his legs and he arches his back and bends one leg at the knee, crossing his arms behind his head and smirking up at her, she growls and attacks him again. This time, she strips his padding and clothing, too, and he laughs and makes comments she can barely hear through the pounding in her ears. She forces him back down with the weight of her body when he tries to rise up to her, tears fabric when he won't yield. She hisses the worst curses she knows at him, abuses him with words while her hands are too busy and too uncertain to abuse him with fists.

She strips him down to his smalls, and then strips away even that.

"All you had to do was _ask_ , Ser Cauthrien," he purrs, and that's when she finds the coordination to cuff him, hard. He hisses as she stands, dragging him with her. Her tears are gone and all that remains is the gritting of her teeth, the tightening of her muscles as she drags the elf's tanned, tattooed body to the door.

She knows he's letting her do _this_ , too, because she's stumbling enough that he could easily catch her leg with one of his feet and she would sprawl across the ground. He's not even trying to hide his harsh, mocking laughter. But she doesn't stop until she's yanked the door open and thrown him, naked, onto the packed dirt ground outside.

And when she does stop, all she does is look down at him (he blurs and duplicates before she shakes her head) and sneer, "If you ever come back again, if you ever touch that armor _again_ , I will rend you limb from limb, Antivan." The words are low and slow and slurred, but her eyes are filled with fire that makes his grin falter.

She slams the door shut.

\--

The fourth time she sees him, it's early the next morning and she's dragging herself into the dim of her house after a stumbling trip to the closest outhouse and well.

She doesn't seem him at first; all she can see is the lack of bottles, the lack of blankets, the lack of Loghain's polished armor, the lack of everything except for her chainmail spread out on the bed and the Summer Sword propped beside it against the frame.

She only sees him when the door closes softly behind her and she turns, slowly, hands twitching at her sides.

He's leaning against the door without a smile or a lifted brow or anything other than his uncharacteristically solemn, long stare. He's reclaimed his leathers, at least; Loghain's armor is simply _missing_ , which is somehow better than seeing it on him again.

"Get out," she says. "And tell me where you put my things, thief."

"I," he corrects, "am not a thief. I am an _assassin_. I am a _Crow_. We may take things that nominally belong to others, but only in the service of the _job_ , yes?"

" _Where are my things, thief?_ "

Zevran sighs. "Oh, but you see, if I tell you? You will just cut my head off. Or perhaps you will save your rather _lovely_ sword over there the trouble, and simply snap my neck, hm? No, no. I will, instead, give you _conditions_ for their return."

Her upper lip twitches and tenses and curls in anger at the thought of _him_ holding Loghain's armor hostage. Hostage! And demanding _ransom_ -

"Will you hear them, Ser Cauthrien, my lady knight?" He inclines his head slightly, holds a hand out, palm up. "I think you will find them actually rather agreeable."

"Speak," she growls out.

He chuckles, finally, the sound oddly reassuring. "Our Lady Cousland would like you to accompany me to Orlais to ferret out and destroy a particular noble. One... oh, what was it? I can't remember these names, they roll strangely on the tongue. Comte- Comte Albret Lorraine? I have been assured the name will-"

She feels what little color is still in her cheeks drain away and her throat tighten. "I see," she cuts him off, memories- stories, really, she was too young to know the Orlesian occupation first hand, but the stories have _become_ memories- bubbling up even through the thudding haze of her hangover and rage. "I'll- go. But you are going to get the _fuck_ out of my way and _giving back that armor_."

"Oh, no, no. You must understand, _I_ am currently more trusted than _you_. The queen argues your loyalty, but the king and Lady Cousland? They are not quite as sure. They might have sent me alone, but I stood before them and said _No_ , this was not a job only for me. You deserved a chance to restore your name!"

"That is such utter bullshit."

Another chuckle. She bristles, but he keeps his distance. "Perhaps. Perhaps it is more accurate to admit that, alas, I do not speak much Orlesian. A bit of hindrance, yes? But I understand that the former teyrn of Gwaren made sure all of his officers learned to speak and read it fluently, in case of infiltration..?"

" _Oui_ ," Cauthrien spits out, the vitriol a combination of anger at him and hatred for the tongue of conquerors.

"Well, then. Suit up, _ma chérie_ , for we have an appointment in Jader, and _I_ am a punctual man."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cauthrien and Zevran set out for Jader with three wagons and a host of mercenaries and non-combatants. Cauthrien still isn't at the top of her game - and it shows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Mention of alcohol abuse, mild gore.
> 
> See if you can catch all the video game references.

Zevran has assembled a team of mercenaries, translators, and general travellers, all brought together in a three-wagon caravan. Cauthrien is not exactly sure when he had the time to organize everything. It speaks to plans that must have been set in motion weeks ago, but when she thinks back, she isn't sure anymore how long she'd been languishing in bed before he arrived.

She is sure, however, that the sun is too bright and the air too cold. This can't be summer. She shakes terribly in the days after Zevran drags her from the house she'd rented, huddled in the back of one of the covered wagons.

The first night, she slinks from the comforting dark to the fire in search of a drink. It isn't, she tells herself, that she needs the booze; it's just a social aspect of a military march. But Zevran laughs and says,

" _Querida_ , I regret to inform you- this caravan of ours, it is dry. My liver and nose need a break after so many months traveling with a dwarven berseker brewery. You will understand?"

She mutters an _of course_ , eats half a bowl of stew, and retreats. He lets her go.

She stays hidden from the sun all of the next day and considers hiding through the evening, but she has avoided breakfast and lunch and can't resist when Zevran steps up into the deep shadows with her, holds out a hand, and says,

" _Cariña_ , come. You must be conscious when we reach Jader - at this rate, you will not last until West Hill. Come, drink some water for me, yes? And have some food?"

She can, however, glare and walk past him without a backwards glance.

The third day, she manages to walk in the sunlight; it's overcast and thunder rumbles in the distance. It is summer, she concludes, but her shivering only weakens and does not stop despite the warmth she finally registers. Zevran walks with her until an hour has passed with him chattering nonsense about the court, about her glorious (sunken, dull, glaring) eyes, and ultimately about the weather (focusing by the end on how mud will be unavoidable and disgusting for all the gravel and clay in it). She never responds with more than a look or a grunt. He shrugs and leaves her, disappearing - either into the treeline they follow west or into one of the wagons, she isn't sure.

She doesn't care.

She listens and joins small conversations and come evening she's found who among the caravan doesn't give two shits about Zevran's dry edict.

He's a nice enough man - one of the translators. He's not Orlesian. He's in his fifties, near Loghain's age, and was a soldier in the War of Liberation. He lost a few fingers and his left eye there. A scar crossing his mouth puckers his lip and drags it down, and he slurs and drools even sober, but she has a great deal of respect for him and he for her. He shares his whiskey without any protests and they find a spot behind one of the wagons after the evening meal, leaning back against the wood and taking burning mouthfuls.

He tells her he would have fought for Loghain in the civil war if it weren't for his hand. She's not sure she believes him- he's not really the soldier type and was likely glad to retire. She doesn't doubt his loyalty, though. And in the end, it doesn't matter.

She's feeling delightfully light and unsteady when Zevran finds them. He taps one foot (clad in fine leather he has told her comes directly from Antiva, courtesy of Lady Cousland) and stares down at them. He clears his throat. Cauthrien glares and turns from him, reaching out for the bottle. But her new friend is already on his feet. Her new friend is handing over the bottle.

Zevran considers it, takes a swig himself, then recaps it and hangs it from his belt.

Her new friend (the bastard) apologizes and leaves them alone.

Zevran looks down at her and sighs. He spreads his hands and says,

" _Princesita_! Really? Truly? You sneak off for- what?"

Cauthrien hauls herself to her feet. She's not in full armor, hasn't been yet since they've left the small town a few miles northwest of Denerim she had holed up in. She has on her mail shirt, but only unarmored breeches and light boots beyond that. Her hair is loose. She still has yet to bathe and she still reeks.

"Step off, _churl_. This is not your business. I am a soldier and can take care of myself," she growls.

"No, you are not a soldier. You? You are a wreck. There's a river just down there- listen, you shall hear her. Go down, soak your head. Or I will be forced to do it for you."

"You couldn't."

"Oh! You know my abilities, then? My limits? Come, test me, Ser Cauthrien. Make it a game. If I win, I get to strip you bare and drag you down to the water myself. Perhaps there shall be some manhandling involved. I can even tie you up, if it would soothe your ruffled pride."

"Pride? Self respect, _thief_. Maybe you haven't encountered the concept."

"No, no- pride. You are as prideful as they come and quite determinedly lacking in self-respect these days. And _I_ am not a thief."

"Murderer, then."

" _Assassin_." He sighs again, shaking his head. "One day, perhaps, I will get you to say it. Now- Will you test me, oh prideful _princesita_? I look forward to a true fight!"

"Taunt me again and this expedition will be down a leader."

"At least you acknowledge my position." He grins. "One of many I can assume for you, I promise."

"I- _what_?"

"So easy to unsettle you, _queri_ -"

" _What are you calling me, churl_!?"

He laughs, stepping back as she advances. "Affectionate names, Ser Cauthrien! Please, be calm. I would not want you to do something foolish. I quite _like_ my health. As does the Lady Cousland, for that matter- give her a reason to completely distrust you and I would be careful where you make your bed."

"I do not respond well to mockery, Antivan."

"Ah, yes. I have noticed this." He shrugs, then sits down. He unhooks the bottle from his belt and offers it to her. She looks at it warily. "Take it. We shall restart our partnership, yes? Consider this an offering."

Cauthrien reaches out, but when her fingers close around the bottle, he doesn't let go.

"Anti-"

"Ah, ah, I have a name!"

"... Zevran." Her shoulders are tense and her hand trembles.

He takes the opportunity to slowly stroke a finger along hers. She twitches.

"Ah, that sounds lovely on your lips! Here you go, then." He lets go and she sits back, unscrewing the flask cap. "Don't drink all of it, though. I'm sure Nicholas would like it back. He's been so careful, hiding it from me. Very creative. It's a shame I can't give bonuses for going behind my back."

"You are a fool to even think to," she mutters, taking a swallow that's slightly larger than she intended. Her throat tightens and works to get it down, color rising to her cheeks for a moment. She manages to suppress the cough that tries to come up once she has the whiskey down.

"Perhaps. Still, cleverness can be useful, hm? Though... perhaps not in a translator. I do not think I would like him taking liberties with my words- at least, not in... sensitive situations." He chuckles. "So much of my own wit would be lost, surely."

Cauthrien rolls her eyes, then looks down at the flask, considering. She caps it and sets it aside, ignoring the look of approval that flashes over Zevran's face.

"Ah, but I have such _stories_ , if you'd let me tell them, Ser Cauthrien!" he says with a grin, leaning forward. He's sitting crosslegged, his elbows propped on his knees now, his hands folded below his chin. He taps one long finger on the back of his hand. "We shall get to know one another, beyond ' _I am a dashingly handsome Antivan Crow and **you** are a-_ '"

"Stop. This is pointless."

"I beg to differ! You see, this whole angry at the world thing- very useful for getting you out of bed, but otherwise irritating and self-destructive. Not to mention unflattering to us both. I have done horrible things, it is true, but I have been told that I can be _quite_ the lovable rogue given the good favor of my traveling companions!"

"I take it this is from the _Lady_ Cousland?" She respects the woman deeply; she does not like her. The thought of the woman, tattooed and turned into some sort of deadly grotesque, makes her shift and finally stand.

Zevran stands as well, scooping up the flask once more. "But of course!" he laughs as his fingers work at his belt, reattching the flask once more. He then offers an arm. She does not take it. He sighs. "Truly, though- I am eternally grateful that I was irritating enough to drive you into the sun, but this will go much more smoothly if you laugh at my jokes and hang on my every word. … No? Then at least that you will not want _so_ much to snap my neck?"

"I don't think that is going to change any time soon."

"Ah, but we've never properly been introduced! There's time yet."

"We've met."

"For a few minutes at a time, perhaps." He begins to lead her away from the shadow of the wagon. She finds herself following, frustrated but needing to do _something_ besides sit and feel her head spin. Today has left her aching, her legs out of practice, but it's a good, familiar sort of ache. It's been too long since she's marched. "Do you recall when I was hired? You were there, hovering just behind Loghain, almost out of sight. You were trying so very hard to be intimidating! Does that usually work? _I_ was of the opinion that he kept you around for other reasons, but the queen-"

"Do not speak of my lord. Or her Highness," Cauthrien cuts in, coming to a stop. He glances back, brow quirked. She adds, "I earned my rank."

"I stand corrected, then," he says with a surprisingly gracious nod. "... Though you haven't exactly been acting it."

"Zevran."

"Ah, my name! Yes, all my censure, gone like mist in the morning sun!" He laughs, then gestures back to the deer path he's leading her onto. She begins to move again. He leads on.

" _Do_ you recall it?" he asks after a stretch of silence during which they pass fully into the trees, the darkness falling around them.

"I do, though the meeting itself was not particularly memorable. Arl Howe was an obsequious ass; nothing new."

"And yet you remember it. Was it my high cheekbones? My pouty lips?"

"No. It was your subsequent failure. It enhanced what memories I _did_ have so that, if I ever came across you again, I could bring you to my lord. Alive or dead, whichever came more easily."

"And yet, when you took Lady Cousland and our glorious king into custody, you spared me! I would have been great fun in Drakon, I assure you. I was _disappointed_."

"So disappointed that you later broke in all on your own. Would that you had taken up residence in a _cell_."

"Ah, ah, I see this is a touchy subject." He doesn't look back, doesn't see her glare of _Of course it is_. He continues on, stretching and resting his hands behind his head as he walks. "But my point is made- our encounters, they always seem to start off on the wrong foot. Or bed. Or armor-"

"Careful, _Antivan_."

"And I lose my name again! Your affections are so trying to earn." Another casual shrug, another glance back with a playful smile. "Here. I will tell you a story about me, far before I ever came to your delightfully muddy little country, yes? That way, you cannot be offended. And when I am done, well-"

He stops and she stumbles to a halt just behind him. The trees have cleared out and there is the sound of water, a sound she hasn't noticed with how fixated she's been on the back of his head, visible only for its lightness in the dim. They're on a rise that juts out over a relatively still stretch of water. There is a gentle slope that winds down to the level of the water off to one side.

" _You_ will return to smelling more of wet dog than of the bottle and _I_ shall be satisfied and leave you alone."

"I'm not going to bathe with you standing here."

"No, I never dreamed of it! Still, this story is not terribly long. And I _will_ stay to check that you've at least shed your armor." He balances his weight mostly on one leg, arms now crossed over his chest. He watches her expectantly until she sighs and tugs her mail up and over her head. The metal slides from her fingers and hits the ground with a dull thud and the shivering sound of ring on ring.

"Ah, good. Well then!" He moves to the edge, looking down at the water, and she fights the urge to push him in. "Back when I was still in good favor with my employers, I once encountered a man - he claimed to want to be a Crow himself. He was very interesting. Possibly Orlesian. He was certainly self-centered enough, yes? Well, I offered to test his abilities and pass him along with recommendations if he might have a chance. He was oh-so-proud - far prouder than you, by far."

Cauthrien at first keeps her distance, watching, but he's standing in a fall of moonlight and the dark is too much, now that she's relearned what it's like to exist outside of the shadows. She joins him, taking a moment to peer over the edge. The water is dark and still. Then she glances at him, expecting to see him leaving or moving to tip her over. He is doing neither, his eyes also focused far below them.

"Antiva City is filled with tall buildings, grand towers. They are quite useful for getting a sense of the part of the city you are in. There is always construction, always changes. I told him to meet me at the top of one of these towers; they are steep and tricky to climb, a true test of skill and stealth, for even if the guard does not care, the people below will point and comment."

"Did he make it?" she asks when he falls silent again.

He laughs.

"Yes, yes. He was quite the climber. Beat me up to the top! He moved in leaps and bounds and yet _somehow_ the people below never noticed. He kept to just the right shadows, the right sides of the building, you see? And so I matched him and we sat atop the tower for a while, talking about the Crows and this and that. The height, it makes you prone to great thoughts of philosophy. The sun began to set and he moved to begin the climb down. I had assured him I would introduce him to the masters and he was quite satisfied with that. But before he left, I pulled him aside. I pointed to the ground below; a cart filled with hay was positioned just so."

He stepped closer, gesturing down at the water.

"I said to him, 'A Crow secret for you, my good friend. Do you see that cart? If you jump, even from this height, the hay will break your fall'."

Cauthrien snorts. "And did he believe you?"

"Oh, yes." Zev grins at her and she feels the slightest bit of a smile creeping onto her own face- and then his hand connects with her back and sends her off the edge of the earth, falling fast towards dark water. She screams.

The water is deep and cold and hits her like a sharp slap, shaking all the whiskey fog that's accumulated from her mind. She flails and is suddenly glad, even through her spiking anger, that she's shed her armor. She breaks the surface with a gasp, treading water as she forces open her eyes.

" _Zevran_!" she shouts up and she hears a laugh- pitched loud enough that it's audible over the water and the racing of her heart.

"Only very, very clever men become Crows, Ser Cauthrien!" he shouts down and he's too far above her for a splash to even touch him. She growls. He laughs again, watching her flail in the water. "Keep this in mind, yes? And get a good wash in while you're at it, _querida!_ "

And then he's gone.

\--

This isn't right; the Summer Sword, _her_ sword, is just the slightest bit too heavy, her muscles protesting as she pulls back into _Ochs_ ¹, the hilt just above level with her left ear and the blade pointing straight out ahead. She knows the moves. She will never forget the stances, the motions, the press and dance- but she can't do them, not exactly, not as well as she should be able to. When she moves out of the guard to strike, she half-trips, her thrust landing unsteadily.

The bandit screams as her blade bites deep- but not deep enough.

A steady litany of curses is rolling tandem with thoughts of _parry-strike-slice-ward_. The first bandit is on the ground, screaming, but she's already pivoted and engaged another. There are a lot - too many. Fifteen- more? Zevran had tried to talk his way through the roadblock but she'd heard something about _little elf bitchboy_ and then there was laughing and the sound of weapons being drawn and she hadn't been _ready_.

She's still not ready.

This is almost all of what she is: the weight of armor, the heft of a sword, the muscle memory of stance after stance and the force of blade on blade, the screams and cries of battle, the feeling of hot blood across her face. But there's a sickening feeling growing in her stomach as she moves, as she falters and nearly falls, that this is not what she is- it is what she _was_. She doesn't know what she is now. She's good enough to take the head of a third bandit almost clean off, but she's not good enough to keep from panting, to keep from staggering back away from the fight.

The caravan isn't an army platoon. Half of the people traveling with them are noncombatants, good people, solid Fereldans, and she gets herself between them and the remaining bandits. She doesn't rush to help the fighters who are already engaged. She's frustrated. She doesn't want to fight if she _can't_ fight.

They're losing people. Nicholas is on the ground clutching his belly, red spreading out in a darkening stain on his tunic and the dirt beneath him. He'd rushed to grab a sword at the first note of trouble, just as she did. She had underestimated him. She finds herself whispering a prayer to Andraste that he'll make it. But he's not the only one; two of their hired guard have fallen, one with an arrow through his throat and the other run through again and again.

Zevran is missing.

She's on the verge of shouting his name when two things happen. First, another highwayman in old, well-worn leathers tries to get by her, unarmed hand outstretched to grab, to take hostage any of the people who shelter between the wagon and her guard. She moves to intercept.

Second, she sees a flash of gold and tan and the only other assailant on the field drops dead.

It's just this, then, the close of her and a man wielding not a sword but an axe. He's in leathers, she's in mail. She has greater reach. She has greater training, by all rights, but he has more recent experience. He hasn't been lost in the bottom of a bottle neglecting morning drills.

But he also isn't fighting for his life- yet.

He's tall but she's taller and she gets in front of him, sword held low in _Alber_ ². Fool's guard. From the look on his face he buys into the name's promise. He rolls his weapon in his hand, loosens his shoulders, smirks and takes a step towards her.

His mouth is open to say something, insult her somehow, but she's already moving, the tip of her sword tracing a path up and across her body as she rocks her weight onto her forward foot. _This_ feels right. _This_ is correct, and the momentary protest of her arms when her sword connects with the shaft of the other weapon quiets as she disengages and falls back into _Ochs_. Another step and she's pulling her blade fast down, then up, and his belly opens like he's wearing thin gauze. He stumbles forward, stops, and stares up at her.

There's a knife sticking out of his throat.

When he falls, Zevran is standing there, brow raised, dusting off his hands. She stands unmoving at first, her sword lifted above her head into roof guard. She inclines her head to him.

He laughs, the sound strained and bitter.

She drops her arms to her side, sword now gripped loosely in one hand. "This is not a time to be laughing," she growls.

"And is it a time for mockery? Because that- that is not what I was assured of gaining when the Warden begged me take you on this trip of mine."

Cauthrien's expression freezes. "I-"

"I was assured that you were one of the most fearsome soldiers in the realm- that if we had fought you, if Georgiana Cousland had not gone quietly and not talked you down, we would have likely ended up dead. And instead I see you stumbling through what should have been an only moderately difficult encounter-"

She slings her sword into its harness on her back, where it should have been all along, and tries to walk past him. He catches her elbow and she jerks against his grip.

"The wounded need attention," she bites out.

"And you need to stop hanging your head and stumbling through life, Ser Cauthrien," he returns. It's the most serious she's ever seen him. The laughter is gone and there is no easy smile, no testing spark in his eye. He's almost half a foot shorter than she is but the new coldness in his gaze bows her head.

He only lets her go after a series of breaths and she nearly trips as she pushes past him and storms off.

\--

Two dead, five wounded. That's almost half of their group. Luckily, aside from Nicholas, none of the injuries are severe. But Nicholas is struggling and she watches him drink the last of his whiskey in an attempt to dull the burning pain. His injury isn't as bad as it could have been - the blade that caught him never entirely broke through the layers of fat and muscle - and while the wound threatens to fester in the summer heat and damp, poultice and rest seem to be keeping him afloat. One of the other translators spent time as a seamstress and she stitches the old soldier up and keeps him company.

It's been three days since the attack and the caravan is beginning to cover an acceptable distance again. The first day they barely moved, not even five miles, so focused on gathering the bodies and burning them to ash. One of the mercenaries, a woman barely into her twenties, had once considered going into the Chantry and knew all the right words and notes. The remembered smell of burning hair and flesh still puts them off of meat at the evening meal. The second day, the groans of the injured as the wagons bumped and jostled along the road led to frequent breaks. They barely crossed the Hafter river by nightfall. They're still not up to speed now, but the pauses are farther apart.

The movement is freeing.

For all of her weeks stagnating in her dark and barren rented room, it is the slow creep of inactivity that she now can't stand. When they break she does exercises she should have been doing all along, reacquainting herself with muscles and joints as if they are old friends she has failed and come crawling back to. She starts with stretches and push ups without weight, then moves on to learning the feel of her weapon once more. Her body punishes her for it, but the ache and strain is delicious. Welcome.

Zevran speaks to her now in only brief jest, that chill that crept into his eyes still there. It's uncomfortable; he is not a man who is serious to others by nature, and she feels that she is seeing something private in his coldness.

There is a pang of anger, too, at how he grows distant as she pulls the pieces of herself back together. His needling, his pushing- it had all read as some kind of caring or concern. She has earned, she thinks sourly, his approval. She has earned acknowledgement. She has earned so much more than what she has now- and this, too is denied to her?

She finds him resting on his back in the afternoon sun, his boots off and his leathers half-loosened as if he considered stripping down to his smalls and only then thought the better of it, with the oxen tethered nearby watching with docile, placid, staring eyes. She offers one of the beasts her hand as she pauses, watching the Antivan from afar. It swings its large head toward her, snuffles twice, then turns away and chews. She rubs it lightly behind one ear. She gave up _this_ , too, when she left her father's farm all those years ago to follow her lord, and she deserves to be acknowledged for everything she has done since.

"Zevr-"

"Can you not see that I am relaxing?" he cuts her off, not even opening one eye to look at her. "Shouldn't you be moping in a way that is calculated to make my life harder?"

She frowns. "I am rectifying that mistake. It won't happen again."

"Ah, good, because I was afraid we would run out of victims! Hopefully we will only lose the three who are leaving in a few days when we reach Heathfield."

"What?"

"Yes, Nicholas and two others have declared that our mission is too dangerous. They have not informed you? No, you do not listen. They are leaving. Two translators and the cartwright. We shall simply have to pray we do not break an axle in Gherlen's pass, yes?"

"You blame me for the bandits?" She advances until she towers over him. He opens his eyes and frowns up at her.

"You are in my sun. And no, I blame you for allowing so many to be injured. It was not the attack that spooked them - it was the carnage and the loss of two guards. I fear your reputation falls even further."

"My reputation as what? A soldier?"

"A leader and a protector of men, _querida_." The endearment has none of its usual sly mirth.

Her expression stills and darkens again. "... I'm sorry."

Zevran sighs and sits up, then rocks backwards, rolls, pushes himself to up to standing in a handspring. He fiddles with the laces and buckles of his armor as he speaks. "Let us go for a walk, yes?"

"I bathed yesterday."

 _That_ at least draws a chuckle from him. "Perhaps you are making progress after all. I am mistaken. Still, come?"

She does, following at his heels. He is no Loghain to demand loyalty and obedience from the first lift of a sword, but she has fallen into a sort of line all the same. His flippancy hides a man who spent a year helping Georgiana Cousland raise an army that even she admits did what Loghain could not do. And even before that, this is a man who has spent years and years killing on command, even if not as a soldier, even if from the shadows. No matter how he makes her blood boil and chill, he can gain loyalty.

And so she follows.

He runs nimble fingers through his hair, straightening the long wheat-colored strands back into order and resettling his braids. He doesn't speak again until they are well past the treeline, away from the blinding white of the North Road that they have newly met up with at the Hafter river ford.

"Tell me what you understand of this job," he says, coming to stop alongside a thick-trunked tree. He leans back against it, arms crossed over his chest, and for a moment she's reminded of the Dalish hunters who came to the Warden's aid.

She eyes him suspiciously. "We go into Jader, you have a plan that you haven't told me yet, we kill Albret Lorraine, we get out."

"That's the short of it," Zevran agrees. "But you are missing a crucial piece."

"I'm assuming it's the plan you haven't told me yet," she says, voice flat and eyes narrowing.

"Hah, no." His smile is tight and mirthless. It makes her shift her weight to one foot. "No, it is this: I have a plan and you lead it to fruition."

"I thought you were in charge of this... thing." She waves her hand in the direction of camp.

"I am, but _you_ are a leader. That is a skill I, alas, do not possess." He wrinkles his nose. "Though I believe I am the better for it. I like being able to slip clean away. But- the point here, the crucial piece, is that if we do not have a band of merry adventurers to go into Jader with us, _I_ have little to work with. See?"

She rolls her lower lip between her teeth, the muscles of her left cheek twitching as she turns this over, fits it into place. He's right- he is no leader. But she's always led in the shadow of another commander, worked within a ladder of command. To work alongside, guided but otherwise given the autonomy to _lead_ -

"And so it is not your failure in combat that I object to the most. It is the fact that you cannot rally your troops. Not only did you let two good guards die needlessly, you're letting it spook the rest. You withdraw from everybody, befriend only the man with the alcohol- I have every right to be disappointed, _cariña_. I had hoped that you would at least bond with them against the foreign elf leading you all along, but no."

"So then," she says, hesitantly, "what do we do?"

"I would start with talking to the others at meals. It might help."

She rolls her eyes. "That doesn't need to be said."

"Oh, no?"

"No. That goes along with basic morale."

"Did you forget this, then?"

"Why, because I 'certainly haven't been implementing it'?" she growls. "I didn't forget it. I had assumed you knew what you were doing."

"I do! I'm handing over the problems to somebody who knows far better what _she_ is doing. Take the lead and I can make you the next Georgiana Cousland! … Well, perhaps not, but something similar. I am a supporting role and a leading man, all at the same time. I have _many_ uses."

She snorts at the half-hearted leer he gives her. "I see you're not disappointed in me enough to stop flirting."

" _Never_." There's an edge of a smile. She feels his disappointment snapping, falling away, at least for the moment. It makes her shoulders settle.

"I'll fix this," she assures them. "Nicholas should still leave at Heathfield - his injury has a better chance of healing, and he'll only slow us if he stays. I'll make it a point to sway the cartwright back to our side. Though you do know it's too early in the season for the pass to become snowed in?"

"Ah, here you are, the lieutenant capable of arresting the Warden! It is good to see you. Yes, I am aware- but what of the rains and melts?"

"The river that flows through the pass has not flooded high enough to close the road since before the Orlesian occupation ended." Cauthrien shrugs. "A broken axle will be inconvenient but not devastating. Unless Jader ups and moves while we're coming for it...?"

"It is wise not to trust an Orlesian city, and so very like you." He uncrosses his arms and stretches his hands up towards a low-hanging branch. He rises onto his toes to catch it and hangs there, barely standing. "I think I like this part of you, Ser Cauthrien - less maudlin, more steely." He smirks.

"Will you perhaps stop stealing my kills now, then?"

"Hah!" He drops back onto his feet. "Let us hope it won't be an issue, yes?"

Cauthrien doesn't respond at first, then frowns and strides towards him. It's a point of pride, her pride, that she can handle her fights on her own. She has been a soldier for nearly two decades and while this last time she faltered - he will never have a reason to "save" her again. She uses her height to corner him, loom, though it's without all of the bubbling anger and resentment she's felt for him these past miles.

He looks up at her with a quirked brow.

"I want a _yes_ , Zevran."

He steps away from the tree and pushes further into her space than she had into his. He doesn't seem to mind her height and she remembers vaguely that he's been traveling with the Warden, a woman several inches taller than even Cauthrien. And he is emboldened, perhaps, by having her understand him at last, in the same way that something has clicked for her and reminded her of what it is to serve in collaboration.

His lips curl and he quirks his brow. Her pointed stare turns into a locked gaze and she can't pull away even if she would allow herself to.

"I will say yes to a great many things. Ask nicely, _querida_ ," he purrs, and she's reminded of dim memories of him half-naked under her, that same note in his voice of teasing with weight behind it.

She can feel heat in her cheeks making the muscles tense and heavy. She licks her lips to work her jaw, but it only makes things worse as he tilts his chin up still more to keep her gaze even as he narrows his eyes. She feels herself leaning in, too, and she blames it on confusion, on being flustered, on being unsettled by this shift between them where she knows her job and place.

He is not Loghain, she reminds herself.

She steps back, takes a deep breath. She forces herself to roll her eyes dismissively.

"Do not come to my rescue again," she says finally, glaring. The glare doesn't have the weight it did back in that little hamlet west of Denerim, and so she adds, "... Churl," for good measure.

He laughs.

 

\--  
¹ Ochs, "ox guard", from [Liechtenauer's](http://www.thehaca.com/essays/StancesIntro.htm) German longsword (two-handed sword) fencing system. Assume German is "Alamarri", i.e., the original language spoken in Ferelden before they began speaking... what do we call it, Common? :)  
² Alber, "fool's guard", from [Liechtenauer's](http://www.thehaca.com/essays/StancesIntro.htm) German longsword (two-handed sword) fencing system.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Contains: References to past alcohol abuse. Smut.

There are several things that Cauthrien enjoys during battle. Falling into a ditch with a screeching hurlock is decidedly not one of them.

They roll, thrashing, one over the other, until they come to a stop with limbs tangled and its weight on top of her. Her sword isn't in her hands and she struggles to get her arms between her and the darkspawn, driving her knee up. It connects with _soft_. Stomach, she thinks, and rolls away as the creature howls and arches up.

She tries to scramble to her feet but falls again as it grabs hold of her ankle with too-large, gnarled hands. She curses and kicks at its head with her free foot and it ducks and pushes forward and her leg catches on its shoulder. She can't free herself from where her armor snags on one of the ridges on its pauldron quickly enough, and in another breath, all she can smell is rot and blood and blight. Its eyes are too large and too glossy, its nose just gaping holes that pulse with each inhale. It has scars along its face and before she gets the leverage to drive her fist into its head, she makes out patterns, swirls, something that looks like pigmented ink and too much like tattoos.

Her fist connects and the hurlock screeches again, letting go of her ankle to reach for her throat. She kicks, then catches its leg with one of hers. Its hands close around her throat just as hers close around its and she rocks hard to one side. They roll. She's on top and manages to knee its gut once more. Its hands slack around her throat. She snaps its neck.

Cauthrien stumbles back to her feet, gasping for breath. She takes only a moment to shake her head and clear it, and then she runs, vaults out of the deep gully alongside the road, grabs up her sword, and heads back into the fray.

The lone emissary in the group, a squat genlock with a staff that looks as if it's been cobbled together from the bones of various animals, goes down beneath a laughing, taunting blur of tan and gold. Cauthrien's lips curl into a fierce, grim smile, and she turns her attention back to the bulk of the band, now thinned. The blood of two darkspawn slicks her armor and sword and her fingers haven't yet forgotten the snap of the fourth's neck.

She catches the belly of a fourth, another genlock focused on one of the mercenaries and oblivous to her. It falls, sputters, dies. The mercenary - the almost-Chantry Sister - throws up a fist towards her in thanks and turns back to the fight.

There's a howl behind her and she whirls into guard, hilt of her sword clasped at her hip. She thanks the Maker that battleraging darkspawn are nothing if not _noticeable_.

Cauthrien has never seen darkspawn as wielding anything aside from clubs or the most basic of swords, but this one has found or made a poleaxe and is advancing fast for her. It has its weapon lifted up above its head, hands spread far apart on the haft, and she swears and swings out of _Pflug_[1] with her metal-clad left hand shifting up to grip the blade of her sword. She catches the head of the axe before it comes anywhere near her, metal on metal between her hand and the crossbar of her sword. She steps with her left foot, pushing her blade right as she moves. The poleaxe head is now safely away and she's right up close to the hurlock. It howls as she surges forward, hooking her left leg around its right, pulling her blade back sharply to give her the leverage she needs to throw it back and onto the ground. She follows it, twisting and dropping to one knee to bury her blade in its face.

That makes five.

She's back on her feet, her left hand shifting to right below the crossbar to help tug it out of skull and earth, turning back to the battle- but there's a sudden quiet. There are no darkspawn left. There are only her traveling companions, some crying, some swearing, some silent. All are alive.

And there's Zevran, standing a safe distance from her, covered in blood and with a satisfied grin on his face. He claps, slowly, as he shakes my head.

"Ah, _querida_ , true proof that we have you back at last!"

She rolls her eyes and shoulders the Summer Sword. They're three days, maybe forty miles, out of West Hill, and they had been making good time towards the main bridge across the River Dane before they'd stumbled upon a band of darkspawn. It's the first sighting of darkspawn they've had since setting out from Denerim and with any luck, she thinks, it will be their last. It's difficult fighting with her eyes narrowed and her lips clamped shut, wary of any injury or any spray of blood that might find its way into her body and corrupt.

Zevran comes to her side, pursing his lips thoughtfully as he looks down at her handiwork.

"I was informed several times and with great solemnity that the best thing to do with dead darkspawn is to burn them." He looks up at her and shrugs. "But... that would take time, and I know that _we_ rarely did it, even with mages about to help. Your thoughts?"

She looks around the field. One hurlock in a ditch, seven on the field, and three genlocks scattered around. "It might not be feasible." They're surrounded by scrubland, the only trees short and sparse. "I hate to bury them and taint the land they're under, but..."

"Blight wolves are unpleasant," he finishes, nodding.

"And there are no farms that I can see," she adds, turning away and making for the rest of the team.

\--

There are three shovels in the wagons and they take shifts in digging the large pit, almost out of sight from the road. Cauthrien and one of the men carry the bodies, careful not to smear any more blood on their faces than is already there. When they'd first heard the darkspawn, Zevran had recognized the sound immediately and sent up the cry- do not let their blood anywhere near you, if you can help it. Everybody appears to have listened and been lucky.

The sun is beginning to close on the horizon and the sky is creeping towards brilliance when Cauthrien tosses the last of the bodies, the hurlock she'd snapped the neck of, into the pit. She stands back as Janine, the almost-Sister, and a few others begin to shovel earth over the dead. She doesn't notice Zevran until she feels his elbow bump hers, but she's too busy to jump or strike out.

She looks down at him to find him gazing back up.

"I would like to say," he begins, his words tinged with that seriousness that still seems so foreign and yet so arresting, "that I am glad you did not- well, that you are not a death seeker." He looks away.

She blinks.

"You... thought that was a possibility?"

"For a time, yes." He shrugs. "I have known others to turn that way."

"The Lady Cousland?"

Zevran hesitates, then shakes his head. "No. I meant to say, I have known the impulse."

"You-"

"It is why," he continues, rocking back onto his heels, "I failed your lord. I was too caught up in-" He waves his hand. "Well, you are familiar with it, to a point, I suppose. At any rate, I am glad not to have found you like that."

For some reason, she feels more flattered by his praise than wounded by his previous judgments, and a smile tugs at her lips. Not the grim one from before but the genuine, small one that's been creeping back as the miles fall away behind them.

"Well," she says, turning to face him fully, "... Thank you. I'm-" Finding the words is an awkward and difficult task and she taps a booted foot anxiously. "I'm glad- that I didn't end up that way. And that you've never been terribly good at achieving what you set out to do."

Zevran bursts into laughter, reaching up to clap her shoulder. "Well said, _querida_! Yes, I think _this_ is the leader we've been waiting for. I can convert one of the wagons into a lounge now, yes? You'll take care of me and all the others? My feet do so ache, after all."

\--

It seems oddly fitting that, when they arrive, the River Dane has flooded its banks.

It will be at least a few days before the waters recede enough for the bridge to be passable. They had arrived the evening before, pushing to make the rive by nightfall so that they could cross first thing in the morning, at Cauthrien's instruction. She sets a more demanding pace than Zevran had, but she knows how to rest animals and men in a way that a year traveling with the Wardens doesn't seem to have taught the assassin. Now, though, it's mid-afternoon and she's contemplating if it would be better to wait or head north to where the river branches into the delta that connected it to the Waking Sea. The day is muggy and she's shed her usual mail in favor of a fitted leather jerkin and breeches and a linen shirt, unlaced at the throat.

Zevran, of course, has decided to forgo any clothing above the waist.

She's in the shade of one of the wagons, leaning into it to look at the map that they've brought along (one no doubt sent with Zevran at Anora's direct orders, if she knows her lord's daughter; it's one of Loghain's, his handwritten notes bold and unmistakable, and when she's not thinking, her fingers idly trace the words). She knows he went off earlier to gather firewood (she'd ordered it), then later went down to sun himself on the broad stones dotting the riverbank (he'd informed her and invited her to join him; she'd declined). He seems to be delighting in the break. He keeps speaking of aching feet and she's beginning to suspect he's trying to goad her in to offering a massage.

She's heard of that, foot massages. The practice seems ridiculous; soldiers can just as easily massage their own feet. Besides, marching for long days even in the limited heat of a Ferelden summer, with the inevitable rain and mud, left feet... particularly uninteresting.

Perhaps it's an Antivan thing, she muses.

Perhaps it's a _Zevran_ thing.

She frowns, focusing back on the map, gauging distance. To march north would add another two days at minimum, and then there would be the problem of getting the carts through the marshland. She remembers dry stretches, even at this time of year, but she'd last been there a long time ago. And marshland seemed like a likely place to find more darkspawn. The encounter the other day has not left her feeling particularly excited about ever seeing those monsters again.

Cauthrien leans back, peering over at the brilliant flashes of sun reflected on the water. She purses her lips, trying to calculate, trying to decide.

It doesn't come; the sun is too bright and the grass here along the shores too green and inviting. It's been a long time since she's just sat, and after folding up and storing the map and fishing out a hunk of hard cheese and her waterskin, she finds herself a spot on a springy patch of clover and settles down.

She still watches the river. Two days to travel north, she thinks, nibbling on the cheese, another few to cross the delta, the chance of darkspawn or cart damage, and another day to regain the main road towards the pass. But potentially worth it, if the river stays high for weeks. The Hafter River, she knows, floods for weeks on end during the summer; her father's farm relied upon it, situated as it was at the westernmost bend. But she's less familiar with the River Dane.

She leans back in the grass and closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. And then, tense and nervous, she tries to recall the sound of Loghain's voice.

 _He_ knew the River Dane. He knew it for many, many reasons, but it was easiest- safest- to focus on when he'd told her about the battle where he'd made his name, where he'd taken his armor. For the first time in - what was it, _months_ now? - she not only allows herself to hear his voice but actively seeks it in her memory. _I need you again_ , she thinks, a warm shame creeping up over her throat and into her cheeks.

"Thinking of me, Ser Cauthrien?"

Her eyes snap open into a glare and there's Zevran, standing close by but not in her sun, not casting a shadow over her that she would notice, bare-chested and barefooted. There's a hint of dark tattoo curving over one of his shoulders and around his other side. She focuses on his face instead.

"I don't appreciate you sneaking up on me."

"Ah, but it is what I _do_! And I feel as if you have recovered enough that I do not need to handle you with kid gloves, hm?"

"I'm recovered enough to take your head off if you surprise me when I'm armed." She stares him down, or tries to, but he just laughs and stretches, his arms lifted and hands behind his head.

"I am a Crow, remember? Clever men, yes? And handsome."

His flirting has returned to its original intensity and then some, especially since she set him at ease in the wake of the darkspawn attack, keeping order and taking control. In truth, she's had his growing respect again since Heathfield when they only lost Nicholas and the other translator who had stayed by his side. They hadn't lost anyone else; the cartwright was safely with them. But it seems that something about how she'd handled her sword and her men has sparked him recently to greater acts of gentle lewdness.

She finds it unsettling that, though his words are often flavored with the obscene (especially when he tells her stories of his exploits in Antiva, as he has begun to do with increasing frequency), when they are directed at her they are only descriptions of himself and are always open invitations- never demands or judgments. It's oddly pleasant (and flattering, though she's reluctant to admit it), and far more bearable than what she has endured at times in the army.

That doesn't mean she quite knows how to respond to it. So she just looks up at him expectantly.

He grins. "You may gaze as much as you like."

"I've seen more than enough shirtless men in my life," she reminds him (and herself), looking away and taking another bite of cheese.

She hears him drop into a crouch nearby and knows that he's letting her hear it. She glances over and inclines her head in thanks.

He reaches out a hand and she breaks off a decent-sized piece of cheese, passing it to him.

"In Antiva," he says, shifting so that he sits beside her instead of crouching, angled so that he faces her and that their legs are stretched roughly parallel to one another, "we usually eat soft cheese. Fresh goats' and sheeps' milk. Yogurts, too- like cheese, in a way, or milk, but tart." He sighs. "Yogurt with honey and salt- it would be perfect for a day like this. Ah, well."

"Do you miss Antiva?" she asks, taking a drink from her skin and then passing it to him. He smiles and drinks deeply.

"Oh, yes," he says when he hands the skin back, making sure to flutter a finger against hers. She ignores it. "I had not even left Antiva City itself before coming to Ferelden, but she has enough to offer for a lifetime. A lifetime, I might add, that I have technically experienced."

She had been about to ask why he hadn't returned yet, and her mouth hangs open for a moment as she reorients herself. Of course he can't go back - he failed his contract, and what little she knows of Antiva has to do with the integrity, danger, and cost of its assassins. But she can't imagine what it must be like and a sympathetic jolt of longing runs through her. If she were to never set foot on Ferelden soil again-

"How do you manage it, the being away?" she asks, pain audible at the edges of her voice.

He chuckles and bows his head. "Ah, but of course you know what it is to have a place as your lover! But I have things enough to interest me here, and one day, I intend to return. I will simply enjoy my dalliances until then, yes?" Zevran winks, then takes another bite of cheese.

He frowns.

"I must admit, though, I am getting quite tired of subsisting on stews made of tasteless grains in order to feed a multitude. And the cheese is-"

"The cheese is very good."

"The only redeeming factor!" he continues smoothly, smirking. "True _Fereldan_ cheese, yes?"

"Yes."

He laughs again, the sound rich and full. She watches how the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkles and realizes, perhaps for the first time, that he is at least as old as she. There are small lines that aren't tattoos that mark him, lines softened by his heritage but still there.

"Though," he says, as he quiets once more, "I have been thinking that perhaps we should send a few enterprising souls to filch some cabbage or carrots or whatever it is you Fereldans grow in abundance this time of year?"

All humor leaves her face and her expression hardens.

"... Or not."

"The people already are struggling with food shortages, between the Blight and the civil war." _Problems_ , she thinks with a twinge, that she and her lord were responsible for in so many ways. She pushes the thought away, but it lingers, tensing her shoulders.

She watches as Zevran lifts his hands, palms exposed to her. "I apologize, _cariña_. I did not consider my words."

Cauthrien hesitates a moment, then shrugs. "You're forgiven. Just know that until we begin to starve, I will not allow anything like that. I wouldn't let you steal from my family's farm- I won't let you steal from theirs." She gestures to the land stretched out around them.

"Ah, yes, you are a farmer's girl."

"And you are a city boy who's used to having his food show up in the market every day," she says, finishing off the last of her cheese and shaking her head. She reaches up with her now-free hand to work at the muscles in her neck and shoulder that have tensed from spending the better part of the afternoon bent over her map.

"Alas, it is true," he agrees, watching her. He drums his fingers on the grass, then pushes himself up to his knees. She finds herself momentarily watching the play of muscles under his skin with the movement; he's built differently from soldiers, wiry and lean, but with a strong chest and arms - likely from climbing and the acrobatics she sometimes catches him practicing. She can see snaking lines of ink curving from around his back. She drags her eyes away and meets his gaze.

"Yes?" she asks, when he doesn't speak immediately.

"I can give you that massage myself, if you like," he suggests. "I assure you, I have learned from the best in all of Antiva!"

"Somehow, I don't think I trust the Crows' method of relaxing muscles."

That draws another laugh from him. "No, no. You see, I was born into an Antivan whorehouse- I did not mention it? Ah, I forget what I have told people. But yes, born there, and among the many things I learned, I learned the art of Antivan massage. And so, I offer it to you."

"I'm not interested." She knows the ways her muscles knot well enough, and while the angle is awkward, her own fingers do the job nicely.

"Ah, well, you cannot say I have never offered."

"I've never attempted to claim that."

Another laugh, this one slightly rueful, and he moves to sit back down. "Well, I- _ow_!" he hisses, and she sees his face contort for perhaps the first time she's seen it into a curled up expression of pain.

"What's wrong?" She frowns and sits forward, now the one to rise to her knees.

"Ah, the problem seems to be with _my_ neck, now. Just a twinge."

Cauthrien holds back a laugh; he's genuinely uncomfortable, she can see, rubbing at one of the long muscles that connects the base of his skull to his shoulders. "I thought," she says at last, "that assassins were supposed to be supple. … Bendy. At the very least, not prone to getting cramps."

"Yes, well. Perhaps it is your martial tempo you set, hm? I told you, one of the wagons _must_ become a lounge! It is the only way to ensure my good health, you see?"

"I can't imagine how Cousland put up with you for so long," Cauthrien sighs, but she can't help the amused smirk that twitches at the corner of her lips.

"She is a strong and powerful woman, _querida_."

"Just so." She watches as he prods at the affected area, presses into his skin, rolls the tight muscle- and grimaces. "Oh, come here."

"What?" He looks up and she thinks the surprise there is genuine, too.

" _I_ will give _you_ a massage. Over here."

He breaks into a smile and maneuvers (carefully, she notes, his motions more visibly considered than usual) to sit beside her. "Ah, finally! You succumb to the desire to stroke my perfect skin!"

"Either you shut up and I touch you, or you keep talking and I hit you," she threatens (albeit with a note of amusement in her voice), then adds a muttered, " _Churl_ ," that makes Zevran's shoulders shake.

"Both are acceptable, _querida_ , after a fashion!"

"Do you ever stop?"

"Only when I sleep."

His skin is sun-warmed and surprisingly smooth beneath her hands as she settles them against the afflicted side of his neck, choosing to ignore anything that comes out of his mouth that isn't a cry of pain. She expected perhaps more scars, little ones that were hard to see, but while she can make out faint lines of old wound across part of his back and tracing down his arms, he's on the whole remarkably intact. His skin is traced instead with bold lines of dark brown that move between fine detail and unavoidable swatches of rich color. She purses her lips and tries to focus only on his neck, brushing his hair out of the way.

She slides one hand around his shoulder to brace him and begins to work the fingers of her other hand along the cramped muscle, starting at the base of his skull and working downwards. Heavy armor worn for too many hours, day after day, leaves nobody unaffected, in her experience. Various members of every band she marched with had taken it upon themselves to help the others.

She remembers the few times when it had been Loghain momentarily submitting himself to her touch.

Zevran at first hisses, then sighs, leaning into that touch. He mumbles something; it's flirtatious but the words themselves are meaningless, as his often are.

"If you are half as successful as you seem to think you are," she comments, idly, eyes fixed on how the muscle bulges when she manipulates it, "Antiva must be _full_ of your bastards running to and fro."

His shoulder shakes even before the laughter is audible. "And oh, would the world tremble at their coming!" She rolls her eyes. "But no, I do not. Though it is not for lack of trying- or a surplus of prudence and available herbalists."

Her fingers still. "Oh?"

"Yet another thing to teach you of the Crows! A secret, this time."

"A secret like the secret of the wagons of hay?"

He tries to look back and grin, but winces as his neck twinges again. She rubs at the muscle's attachment on his shoulder and he relaxes again. "No, this one, it is one I will have told only to you."

"I shall hold it in strictest confidence, then. And not believe a word of it."

"You wound me, Ser Cauthrien!" She digs a finger beneath his shoulder blade and he squirms. "Fine, fine. I swear to you upon- well, my mother had no honor, but the honor of a mother who possesses it, that I speak only the truth."

"Go ahead."

"You know, of course, how the Chantry keeps its templars without families? No templar children running around in clanking armor?" She nods, then voices her assent when she remembers he can't look. "The Crows operate in a similar fashion. Families are... distractions. And children, inconvenient and possibly costly. But unlike the templars, our jobs often include the more hedonistic of pursuits, hm? In fact, to be a Crow is to be plied with luxuries, among them men and women as your desires trend. So they can hardly forbid us from pleasure. Instead, when we have been accepted into the ranks, the men, we are- how shall I put this- snipped?"

She leans forward, her eyes immediately go down to his breeches, and he laughs, the sound just a breath against her ear. She stiffens and looks at him.

"Everything is in working order, but- no children. An elegant solution, if a painful one."

"And the women?"

"More complicated, requiring herbalists and mages and all sorts of unpleasantness that I never had the misfortune to have to participate in."

She sits back after a moment, considering. Her fingers begin to work again, pressing in lazy circles.

"Have you ever regretted it?" There were nights where she had felt a sense of loss, knowing she would never be working in the fields with her children running around, shouting and squealing and scaring away the birds and pests, but her choice was at least, in theory, reversible.

"Hm, only once, and only in a very vague sense. There was- a woman." He pulls away from her, his hand sliding hers from his skin. He leans forward and grabs up the waterskin, then drinks deeply. She watches him. Even when he turns to her, leaning forward to rest his elbows against his bent knees, he doesn't speak immediately.

She soon isn't sure if he'll continue at all.

But he does, after a brief tensing of his jaw. He wrests himself from a blank gaze off beyond Cauthrien. "Another Crow. Her name was Rinna. Somewhere in me, I must have thought about the possibility. But- it did not work out."

"She didn't reciprocate?"

He hesitates and his voice is oddly soft when he says, "I killed her."

There's a long stretch of silence, then, and Cauthrien finally stands, stretching and looking out over the rushing water not one hundred yards away.

He rises to his feet as well, holding the waterskin out to her. She takes it. The leather is warm from the sun now, too, and it weighs almost nothing- empty.

"It was a tragic misunderstanding," he adds, finally. His voice is soft. "One that I regret."

"And so you went death-seeking?" she suggests, remembering for just a moment the first time she'd seen the assassin, all business and distant eyes, nothing like the man she encountered at Fort Drakon, let alone the man standing beside her now. She'd attributed the change to his failing his mission, and she is perhaps not wrong. But the distance is more meaningful now than the professionalism ever could be.

"And so I took a job I knew that I could not complete," he agrees. "And now I am here, eating your wonderful Fereldan cheese and getting to know beautiful women who wield gigantic, _sexy_ swords. I believe I am quite lucky, yes?"

She nods, slowly. He offers a smile, a peace offering, a _You didn't know_. She takes it and returns a smile of her own. For the first time, she doesn't think to glare at the word _beautiful_ on his lips.

\--

The River Dane recedes enough to cross after five days of waiting. She never suggests that they try striking north, and the skin of her face and hands has darkened a little from days sitting in the sun, watching the water, and remembering with slowly increasing ease the Loghain she knew before the Blight and pushing away her guilt for a man who'd changed so much.

There are no more pauses, for battle or nature alike, between there and Gherlen's pass. They climb into the Frostbacks and though the air grows chilly, it isn't cold enough to require woolen cloaks. As the days pass, Zevran tells her more about the woman, Rinna, and she in turn tells him bits and pieces about her life, about Loghain. She tells him about how she met her lord, seeing him set upon by bandits and rushing to his aid with only a hoe, and how her help was, ultimately, completely unneeded. She even laughs at the memory; it doesn't sting nearly as much as it had when all she'd had to tell it to were empty bottles.

There are moments when she thinks she might genuinely like the Antivan, and, on occasion, words like _thank you for saving me_ try to find her lips. She never says them, though. And he, inevitably, does something absolutely ridiculous and demonstrative and she finds herself rolling her eyes, biting out harsh words, appending churl (though now more to soften the blows of her words than to add to them, as he seems to find the word amusing).

When they draw near to the branch of the pass that would take them to Orzammar, Zevran spends an entire day telling stories and attempting to entice her with the promise of roasted nug. There's a woman, he says, that he knows- Nadezda, fascinating, a Carta enforcer turned whore by necessity- that he wants to drop in on. She almost gives in- but then he goes on to talk about how claustrophobic it is beneath the earth, how tight and close, and though she thinks he's trying to make it sound sensual and seductive, she shakes her head and presses on.

"Perhaps on the way back," he says, and she shrugs.

There are a few waystations in the pass this time of year, places with semi-permanent structures where merchants stop for company, entertainment, and drinks. They take advantage of them, though at the first two they pass, Cauthrien doesn't drink. She remembers the anger of all those miles ago and forgoes what will be, at any rate, cheap and thin beer. Each time they stop, she feels Zevran's eyes on her, testing, watching.

He's always cheerful the next day, though he never claps her on the back and says, "Well done!" It's not a matter of _well done_ , and they both seem to understand it.

The third waystation, however, is a day's travel from the Orlesian border. They stop for two days to make sure that everything is in order. Zevran finally begins to sketch out a plan.

Comte Albret Lorraine is also a Chevalier, and that, she tells Zevran, is why the name makes her teeth clench. Thirty years ago, he held control over the lands by the western bend of the Hafter River. Her mother's memories, her father's, are her own in meaning if not in truth. She hates the man as much as they ever did even though he was gone before she turned five years old.

She does not tell him that.

Zevran takes her hatred as deeply cultivated national pride and anger and leaves it.

He says the first order of business, upon reaching Jader, will be to send out their translators to listen, to confirm reports of the Comte's favorite haunts before they move any further. Meanwhile, the rest will find and create safehouses for if the mission goes sour, and for hiding out in the aftermath. Comte Lorraine will be dead by the time they leave Jader.

Cauthrien frowns and asks Zevran why he doesn't simply sneak in, slit the man's throat, then leave.

Zevran shrugs and says, "Her Highness thought you would want to be involved."

Cauthrien is grateful but only shows it in a nod.

\--

Their last night in the pass, Cauthrien drinks.

She sits with the mercenaries, the translators, the cartwright, and she drinks small sips of ale. She listens to stories, laughs with them, commiserates with them over the current state of home. She apologizes and they tell her that it wasn't her fault, that the motions of the great men and women are beyond them. She does not say that that is not how it should be, not in Ferelden.

She drinks alone, too, once the others have left the benches of the lean-to tavern for the fire by their wagons. Then, she drinks more deeply- but not quickly. There's an element to the alcohol that isn't the same. It doesn't soothe the same aches or stoke the same fires. She wonders if that means she's recovered. She wonders if that means she's atoned.

It's strange, she thinks, how quickly having another job and being on the move have worked upon her. She counts back the miles when the days run together. Two months, at least, since Zevran dragged her out of her bed kicking and screaming and made her remember what she is, what she's always been. She still hates him for daring to come to her in Loghain's armor, and with a pang she remembers it's still on the line for this job.

But it's not in the wagons and so she assumes that it is safe with the queen. She relaxes.

"Might I make an observation?" Zevran, of course, and he slides onto the bench across the table from hers, glancing between her and her tankard.

"Will anything I say stop you?"

"Not likely, no." He grins, leaning forward on his elbow. He reaches out with a finger and drags the tankard towards him with a slight touch. She watches curiously. "I," he says, eyes locked on hers as he steals away her ale, "don't think you drank very much before you ran from the world."

She flushes. "... And what makes you say that?"

"How easy it's been for you to give up on it. A few days of need, yes, but then it passed away, and there have been ample opportunities for you to break the rules and find a drink- or even change the rules, now that you're in charge. But you don't. And so I am forced to conclude that drinking has never been an everyday sort of thing to you."

His words draw a small, rough laugh from her. "You're observant."

"But of course! It's a useful trait to have, in an assassin."

"I suppose so."

He lifts the mug and takes a sip, then grimaces and sets it down. "Or, perhaps, you simply have more discriminating tastes, if this is all that's been on offer."

"No, you're right," she assures him. "A few nights a week with the men, a few times a month without them."

"I'm glad! Though I suppose it means that I am not quite as skilled of a healer as I perhaps thought," he says, with a grin. Then he stands, offering the last of the booze to her. She shakes her head. When he strides off with a beckoning glance, she follows, leaving coin and tankard on the table.

It's become a habit, these evening walks into whatever land surrounds their camp, though he seems to initiate them more often when it's trees than brushland or rocks. He hasn't pushed her into any ponds or rivers again, and when they stop to talk she keeps distance between them. There's something in the way he looks at her that's gone from being irritating to being strangely enticing, and she's caught herself increasingly remembering how his skin plays over his muscles or dwelling on small details in the stories he's told her of his kills, his conquests.

She doesn't always like the glee he takes in recounting tales of manipulation and betrayal, but there are other parts she finds she likes perhaps- too much.

"Are you ready?" he asks, and she looks over at him, brow furrowing, wondering if she's missed something he's said. He smiles. "To play spy with me in Orlais. We shall be children playing at a master's game! Always exciting, yes?"

"Foolish," she supplies, "seems a better description."

"Well, our Comte shall not see us coming. Or perhaps he will. I'm still deciding." Zevran laughs; he's found what he always seems to seek, a tree broad enough that he can lounge against it, his feet at different heights propped on roots that break the soil. She stays standing nearby. She's dressed in the same clothes she wore at the River Dane; she abandons armor when they rest, now, a habit she's not entirely sure where she picked up.

"Do you always wait until the last moment to plan?"

"But of course! Things change so quickly. People are not who we think them to be." He looks pointedly at her, raising his brows and inclining his head. "For instance, I believed you to be an angry soldier with nothing to her besides loyalty to a paranoid man."

Her eyes narrow and he raises his hands.

"And I have been wrong," he adds. "About the woman and the man in question."

"And so, what am I?"

"A leader of men, as I have told you before. And a good one, at that. And I dare say that you fight better than our Georgiana, though she is more frightening."

She feels herself flush with the praise. His gaze on her is- warm. Affectionate. And there's that edge of want and need that she thinks never completely leaves him. He simply puts it away sometimes.

Now, though-

She clears her throat. "Well, ah. Thank you. I'm- for a while I think I was just as you described."

"But people change! And so, we adjust our plans."

Her eyes slide down his body, and he seems so different from the man she watched meeting with Loghain and Arl Howe, different even than the man who confronted her at her door and plied her with a name that made her blood boil. Though not so different, she thinks, from the man she'd had naked underneath her for the briefest of hazy moments.

"Do you like me more, now?" she asks, and there's an unfamiliar, hoarse note to her voice.

He responds to it, shifting his weight, drumming his fingers against his arm. "Oh, yes. Undoubtedly."

"More willing to," and here her tongue trips over her words. The drifting buzz of the alcohol sets things right after a moment where her cheeks turn pink. "More willing to be under me?" She frowns. Her first thought had been to ask if he was more willing to assume a position beneath her, but she'd thought that was too suggestive- but this is hardly better.

Zevran is smiling a pleased, predatory smile when she manages to look at him. He pushes away from his tree and walking languidly towards her. She takes two steps back as he advances, stopping only when she nearly stumbles over a root and feels her back connect with rough bark. She swallows and he comes closer, looking up at her with a raised brow, a half-realized smirk. He doesn't touch.

"What was that you just said?" Zevran asks, and there's that purr again, that same purr that's been slowly invading her thoughts and making her-

"N-nothing," she breathes, frowning. Her cheeks are hot and heavy, the skin feeling too-tight and bare. Her breathing is shallow. She realizes distantly that he's making her feel like she hasn't felt in years, since the last time Loghain sparred with her and threw her to the ground and- She swallows again.

His eyes dip to the bob of her throat.

"... Should I leave?" he asks, voice quiet and surprisingly gentle.

She bites at the tip of her tongue. Yes, he should leave- he is not Loghain and she is not a woman moved by passions. And yet there's ale on her brain, just the slightest touch of fog, and she remembers the feel of his skin beneath her hands, the feel of his body stretched out beneath her, and for one of the few times so far in her life, she feels her body stir. Her throat feels dry. Her lips part again, involuntarily, and her tongue darts out to wet them.

He waits, head tilted slightly to one side, eyes fixed on her. His hands stay at his side for a long moment.

And then he reaches out and places one of his hands flat against the trunk of the tree beside her waist.

It's an invitation, either to tell him to go and possibly strike him down or to let him come closer. There's a brief span where she thinks of bending to him, taking his lips or letting him take hers, but then she reminds herself, firmly:

 _He is not Loghain._

So instead, she straightens her shoulders, closes her eyes, builds up her courage, and says,

"Get on your knees."

When she opens her eyes again she can see him grin. He's laughing, softly, and once she's watching him again, he shifts his hand from the tree to her side. She can feel the touch, light at first, then firmer, heat radiating through the linen.

"I will say yes to a great many things," he says, leaning in and raising on tiptoe to breathe in her ear. "All you must do, _querida_ -" and that word is now tinged with something else, something extra, something he's been toying with and hinting at but never pressing until this moment, something heated and spiced and tantalizing- "is ask nicely."

There's a flash of irritation that goes through her, but it's not the same as every other time he's taunted her. It's (and she struggles to understand it even as she's feeling it) a playful sort of irritation. It doesn't make her want this any less, doesn't cool her body at all. She _aches_ in a way she hasn't in years and though he is not Loghain and is not the one she wants to kiss her and seduce her and take her on the land beneath them, there are other things she can have. Things she can want.

"On your knees, churl," she whispers.

He laughs again, grin widening. "I was truly beginning to suspect you'd never ask," he purrs, settling back onto his heels and nuzzling against her throat as he does and sending shudders running through her. He takes his time traveling down her body, both of his hands now trailing lightly along her sides as he moved into a crouch. He tugs up the fabric of her shirt, tucked into her pants, and slips his fingers up underneath. She jumps at the skin to skin contact, then leans back heavily against the tree.

She watches him through half-lidded eyes and the dim of the evening forest, her heart pounding in her ears and her belly, as he takes the first set of laces of her pants in his teeth. His hands have slid around to her back and are settling at where the tops of her hips crest, touch still light. She hears a small mewling noise, then realizes, headily, that it came from her throat.

Zevran grins and nuzzles at her groin, drawing another of those sounds from her.

His teeth and tongue are as nimble as she's ever seen his hands be and he's soon working on the second set, then the third. His fingers trace soothing patterns on the small of her back as she begins to twitch, gasp, grit her teeth so as not to beg him to go faster.

All the heat of him against her is suddenly replaced with an unexpected rush of summer evening chill and she moans at the contrast as he touches his lips gently against her smalls.

He's pushed her pants down only enough to gain access and she's able to lift one of her legs and hook it over his shoulder. Another chuckle and she glares down at him. "Zevran-"

"I am not mocking you, _querida_ ," he assured her, his voice a heated rumble against her body. Her head falls back against bark and her fingers claw at it. "I just never thought to see you so- eager."

He lets go of her back with one hand and instead traces her outline through her smalls. She can feel the fabric try and cling to her growing wetness and she squirms at the touch. He pulls his hand away, then, instead reaching up to hold and caress her thigh even as he leans against it and presses kisses along the soft skin there.

"How long has it been?" he murmurs, and she looks down in time to see him gazing up at her.

She catches her tongue between her teeth again, then pulls it free and whispers, "Never, for this."

She thinks she sees surprise, but then it passes. "And for anything else?"

"Years. … Over ten," Cauthrien confesses, and looks away from how his eyes widen and he pauses in his ministrations.

He doesn't laugh and she sags in relief. Instead, he presses another, firmer kiss to her leg. "A shame," he murmurs, or she thinks he murmurs, and then something else- " _Mereces algo más_.[2] " She's about to ask what those words mean when he leans forward again and mouths her through the linen of her smalls.

Words flee and she's left twitching and moaning, eyes falling closed. Her toes curl in her boots and her fingers scrabble for purchase. One finds his head and tangles in his hair. He doesn't seem to mind, his tongue tracing lazy lines and small circles. Even dulled, the sensation is almost too much, too new, too- _everything_ , and she whispers, "N-not so much-"

His mouth stills and she tries to focus only on how his breathing feels, the way he presses his closed lips against her and gives her only pressure and heat. When her leg still planted on the ground supporting her begins to still, she nods.

"Now?" he asks.

"Yes-"

His tongue traces one last meandering line upwards to the side edge of the fabric, where his teeth catch on it and drag it away from her, baring her without ever letting go of her body.

She nearly screams when his mouth finds her without the barrier of fabric between them.

He goes slowly, avoiding her sensitive nub except to kiss it lightly, focusing more on the stretch of skin between it and her entrance until she begins to rock her hips and whisper nonsense syllables. She arches as he takes to licking, nipping, _suckling_ and she thinks she might come apart right then, but just when she begins to twitch and writhes, he moves to other areas, dipping his tongue into her by degrees. She groans his name, hand twisting in his hair still tighter, and it seems to spur him on. His hand on her thigh leaves its perch and she whines at the loss of touch until she feels one long digit toying at her entrance. Then she whimpers and cants her hips still more towards him.

" _Please_ ," she whispers.

"My pleasure," he responds, voice throaty, and slides his index finger inside of her.

She rolls her hips with more urgency, movements driven far more by instinct than by any distant experience, and all she knows is that she needs this, wants this, and that he knows without learning her nearly every thing that can make her scream. He knows her body better than she does, knows when to add another finger, when to crook them, when to remove them entirely and tease along her, when to lift his head and kiss at her stomach, her thigh-

Somebody's crying out, moaning and begging, and she thinks it might be her. It doesn't matter. The heat and pleasure is overwhelming, washing away everything else, and nothing matters when she finally crests, body and mind seizing as she clutches Zevran to her, helpless to let go, helpless to do anything but sob.

She knows that soon he lightly touches her hand and she releases, knows that he returns his slicked hand to her waist and pulls her down into his lap. He cleans her up, refastens her clothing. He holds her against his chest and brushes loose strands of hair from her forehead. He doesn't try to kiss her.

When Cauthrien is truly aware again, she's taking in a deep, shuddering breath. Zevran is stroking her upper arm. It's soothing and for a moment, she feels as if she could sleep right there- but then she realizes what she's done, how loud she must have been, the chance that somebody back at camp heard, and her cheeks burn. She struggles to sit up. She bats away his hands when he tries to help.

She struggles, panting, to her feet, her legs unsteady. She stares down at him.

He gazes back up, head canted.

"I-" she tries, then falters. She swallows, trying to remember what happens now. She doesn't know; the few other men she's been with are distant memories, quick trysts where she never saw them again or, at least, never spoke to them again.

The only thing she can think to say is, "Thank you. … Do you- need-"

"If it pleases you. Or, I can take care of myself for tonight. I certainly have enough to think about." He grins and inclines his head, then reaches out for her. She takes his hand and helps him to his feet, then gazes back towards camp.

He laughs.

"Yes, _querida_ , I do believe they heard you from here. Perhaps next time, we should walk a bit farther out?"

 _Next time_. She frowns, uncertain.

He notices, shrugs. "If there is to be a next time, that is. I, for one, am up for a next time."

"I'll- keep that in mind," she murmurs, frown easing slightly.

"But of course, oh gallant commander! Lead on." He grins and she shakes her head. "... And _would_ you help me with my... tension? Perhaps another massage?"

"Perhaps next time," she says after a moment spent staring at him, blushing. He laughs and bows deeply and she relaxes in turn. When they make their way back towards camp, she walks two steps ahead and he follows in the shadows.

 

\--  
[1] _Pflug_ , "plow guard", from [Liechtenauer's](http://www.thehaca.com/essays/StancesIntro.htm) German longsword (two-handed sword) fencing system. Assume German is "Alamarri", i.e., the original language spoken in Ferelden before they began speaking... what do we call it, Common? :)  
[2] _Mereces algo más_ , "You deserve more."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you get close enough to a Comte to assassinate him? Zevran has a plan - and in true Zevran fashion, it employs a distinct absence of clothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter in particular has a _lot_ of Orlesian. All of the Orlesian lines have a linked footnote, or you can choose to read it as is - Zevran certainly doesn't understand what's being said, after all. :)

"No. Absolutely not." Cauthrien crosses her arms, gaze focused on Zevran. She pointedly does not look down at the sprawling bed between them.

He grins. "Oh, my dear Ser Cauthrien, there's no need to pretend to be embarrassed! I will not judge you!"

Her expression doesn't change. "I hate you with every fiber of my being, _Antivan_." She hasn't had occasion to call them that in weeks, but the epithet falls from her tongue easily. The room is too small and close, and despite the barrier the dark wooden bedframe poses, with its gauzy red curtains and excessive pillows, he's far too near to her for his own safety.

Uncaring of the fire in her eyes, he chuckles. "Now, now, do not flatter me too much." He moves lazily to sit on the edge of the bed, then recline against a gold-threaded bolster. He's changed for the occasion, his leathers abandoned for tight-fitted trousers tucked into his beloved Antivan boots and a high-collared, dark shirt with red embroidery. She thinks he looks ridiculous.

But the fabric he has laid out for her, the opalescent _scraps_ \- "That? That does not count as clothing. I am not wearing that."

"Well, we can walk you in naked, yes? Perhaps it shall be even more effective!"

Cauthrien growls, hands now clenching into fists at her sides, trying desperately not to strike out at him. It's difficult.

Zevran purses his lips a moment before sitting up and leaning over to settle a hand lightly on her elbow. She jerks away and he sighs. "Look, _querida_. This will be our best chance."

"I refuse to believe that this is the only option you could come up with. Sneak into his estate on your own! We can cause a distraction at the door. I'm not going to-"

"It would be needlessly dangerous," he interrupts, shaking his head. He beckons, as if she would actually sink onto the mattress with him. She bats away his hand.

"Then I challenge him to a duel. _You_ challenge him to a duel."

"He will refuse."

She throws her hands up. "Then get one of the other girls! Janine?"

"She does not speak Orlesian. And he does not go for blondes."

"Well, one of the translators."

"I don't know them well enough to trust with something this important. And they would be at risk if he turned violent. Look, it is only a night, two at most, if our information is correct. You have survived worse, I'm sure."

Cauthrien groans, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. She's ensconced in the protective shell of her armor and has rarely been more thankful for it. They're standing in one of the back rooms of a Jader brothel; there's a press of heat and smoke and sex around them, and while Zevran seems more at ease than she's ever seen him, she's tense from head to toe. Bad enough to be thought a patron.

Zevran wants her to pretend to be one of the girls.

 _My friend_ , he'd told the madame, _my friend wishes to play the whore for the night! Oh yes, she's possessed of strange proclivities. Do not be dissuaded by her martial appearance - she plays roles like an actress. Yes, yes- and she does not ask to keep the pay! And here, a bonus for your troubles._

Strange proclivities.

She had wanted to snap his slender neck.

And she'd been forced to translate between them, his Common too florid and fast for the madame and the madame's Common too businesslike to express her interest and acceptance.

She thinks her skin must still be on fire from that.

"Cauthrien," Zevran murmurs, his voice softer and closer to her. She drops her hands and looks over to him. He isn't touching but he is holding out his hand to her, expression less mocking than before. "I would not ask this of you if I did not think you could do it."

"It isn't a matter of ability," she says, voice equally soft. "It's a matter of pride. I-"

Zevran looks down at the costume he's found for her. "Loghain would not approve, yes?"

She nods, the motion hesitant and jerky as she thinks clearly for the first time how her lord (or her father or her mother or so many others) would have reacted. To see her reduced to an Orlesian whore-

She pales with the feeling of the word constricting around her. "I will not do this."

"Two nights, _querida_. I promise, and then it is done. You sit with him, you giggle, you smile, you bring him back to the room- and he takes a knife to the back of his spine. He is killed by his lust for a Fereldan farmer's girl, yes? Poetic. Think of that. And I will be there. You only have to look the part." He takes her hand lightly and pulls her to sit on the bed. She allows it, perching on the edge. "Two nights, and if he has not shown himself by then, our information is wrong and we look for another way."

Cauthrien swallows hard, teeth clenched- then nods again. She closes her eyes, shoulders sagging. "... Fine. I'll- try."

"That is all I ask. Now, change, yes? And then I'll apply your paints."

She grunts assent. "Then get out."

He inclines his head, then pulls himself from the bed. "Of course. I'll return in a moment - wet your hair, too?"

"Get out."

He bows when he reaches the door. And then he's gone and she's left alone with the twisting feeling of the anticipation of battle mixed with shame and wounded pride, the scent of the perfumed sheets cloying and overwhelming as she lets herself fall back against the pillows.

\--

They arrived in Jader almost a week ago. The wagons and oxen are outside the city gates, watched over by their bullocky. She hates to leave Loghain's map behind, but they have been moving often between inns and taverns, and after tonight they will likely be holed up in a small safe house. It would have gotten lost in the chaos of the mission.

She groans inwardly at the thought of what's to come. Her costume sits on her uncomfortably. She isn't built for silk and lace, a corset nipping in her waist, her smalls bared to the world and covered in ruffles.

Janine, the almost-Sister-turned-mercenary, and the others are scattered around the city. A few of the hired swords will be coming to join them at the brothel once night falls. The rest are relaxing or keeping track of Lorraine's movements, listening for rumors and scouting out his local estates. Zevran had finally decided on this ploy of his only a few nights before, leaving the two of them alone, the rest of her people too far away to command. It grates, being dragged from her element.

She's sitting now with strips of fabric holding her hair in curls as it dries, Zevran kneeling between her legs and leaning forward to paint careful lines along her face. He's covered her skin from her hairline down to the tops of her shoulders in white paint, smudged at the edges to blur into her natural color. Now he lines her eyes with some sort of shimmering blue-green pigment. It flashes gold when he tilts the small pot. She fights to keep her eyes open, her gaze up towards the ceiling. She fights not to flinch.

To keep her mind off of the tickling swipe of the ox-hair brush, she asks a question that's bothered her since the first lilting words of Orlesian reached her ear, before they'd even reached the walls of Jader.

"Tell me again why that Orlesian bard companion of yours isn't on this job? She would be the logical choice. She speaks the language and has the connections. And _she_ could dress up like- like- ... this."

Zevran hums thoughtfully. "Well, Georgiana handpicked me for this mission. And she doesn't like Leliana anywhere near as much as she likes me." He drags the brush along her lower lid, then up and out in a curling line along her temple. Face painting is in season, he had told her - playful mimicry of the masks so popular among the upper classes these days.

The sliding touch makes her nose wiggle. "You know, I don't believe that."

He lifts his brush from her skin. "Haha! Well. There _may_ have been occasions where the two would sing and dance, tempting and taunting poor Alistair."

"And you," she says, taking a deep breath before he moves to her other eye.

"... And me, perhaps. On occasion," he confesses with a smile she can see at the edges of her vision. "But- no, the real reason is that Georgiana sees me as the assassin and spy, Leliana as a singer and performer. I keep trying to tell her, you _know_ the woman is a bard, not a minstrel, but no. Georgiana will not listen. And Leliana, well, she is basking in court while she talks of returning to the Chantry. Claimed bad blood between her and other members of her Game when I asked her to come along. And, to be quite honest, I think I prefer _you_ dressed, as you say, like this."

He sits back on his heels, surveying his work. As he screws a lid back onto the blue-green pot and sets it aside, drawing the brush along his palm to blot the remaining pigment, he purses his lips. Thinks. Then he bends to picks up another jar of another color. It looks like a smooth, rosy pink, then shifts to green as he tips the glass to one side.

Orlesian paints are not natural, she decides, sighing and nodding. "I look ridiculous," she mutters as he leans forward again, now adding color to her eyelids and the designs along her temples and along the bridge of her nose. She closes her eyes at a light touch.

"Oh, I beg to differ. You look _delectable_. I know many men who would be unable to walk, if they were to see you like this."

She blushes, the heat oddly tight from the weight of paint on her cheeks.

"This isn't me."

"No," he concedes, and there's a rattle of jars. Another color. She doesn't look to see what it is. "No, it is not you. But it is attractive." The cool press of the brush to her skin is slowly growing comforting. He works smoothly, thoughtfully. There's another rattle and then his fingers are on her skin, rubbing small circles on her cheeks.

"I don't want to know what I look like."

"Then I will not describe you. But rest assured, it would all be flattering."

His fingers brush her shoulders now, those same circular motions, and she relaxes somewhat. They've assumed a careful distance since that night in Gherlen's pass, but his touch easily brings back memories of the woods, the feel of bark against her back, the sight of him beneath her. She ignores thoughts of the awkwardness that followed.

Yet another rattle; she hopes it will be the last.

"Open your mouth, _cariña_ ," he murmurs. It draws an unexpected shiver from her and she complies.

The brush, cool and smooth, touches the center of her lower lip. He's covered even her lips with the white paint, and now he repaints her smile - a small circle on the bottom of her lips, two small, rounded peaks on the top. The shape he paints isn't even half the width of her mouth. It feels ridiculous, but the slide of paint is oddly, intensely sensual. She shifts in her seat, fingers clenching around it.

He chuckles, his hands trailing up her shoulders, her throat, coming to rest in her hair where he begins to unknot the rags, letting down soft sausage curls. He murmurs in her ear:

"Keep your lips parted a moment longer, while it dries. And then, I think, it is time for your debut."

\--

Cauthrien thinks she might scream from the weight of all the eyes on her.

Zevran whispers to her that it's because she's the new girl, it's because she's gorgeous, but she's sure it's more that everybody can see that she doesn't belong. The real workers can't appreciate that she's here supposedly on a whim, because she thinks their life is sensual, erotic. They certainly can't appreciate, if they've heard, that she's letting the madame take all of whatever she makes.

She hopes to make absolutely nothing, of course, but they don't know that.

Zevran assures her that she's just being paranoid, but he can't understand the whispered (and sometimes not whispered) comments.

Soon, though, it's only the patrons watching her. Everybody else has exhausted their supply of amused or distrustful or outright hateful looks while she sits only with Zevran on a small couch. He's arranged her so that her legs are draped over his lap and he's removed one of her heeled shoes, fingers idly playing with her ankle, her heel, the ball of her foot. After a few moments of ticklish tension, she's relaxed into it. His hands and heat are familiar and are the only reason she hasn't fled.

Foot massages, she thinks, wryly. She drums her fingers on the upholstery, then leans back against the arm of the couch, her head falling back as she looks up at the ceiling. She tries to remember to smile. She tries to look languid.

She tries to ignore the feeling of what seems like a hundred men and women, staring at her barely-covered breasts and the exposed line of her throat.

How long have they been there? Hours? Only minutes? It seems like an eternity, though, especially when other men come close and begin speaking to her - sometimes in Common, sometimes in Orlesian, always with a smile that sets her teeth on edge. She doesn't know how to flirt and so she tries to remember how Zevran behaves. How she's seen women behave around Zevran. She looks up through her lashes, smiles, makes noncommittal comments.

Zevran usually intervenes to say that she's taken for the evening.

His fingers, on occasion, dance up along her legs and her eyelids flutter for a moment, her lips parting slightly. She twitches in his lap and he laughs in return. She kicks lightly at him and he catches her foot again, fingers kneading and massaging until she relaxes again.

It goes on like that, interminably, until the door to the brothel opens and the madame crosses the floor in a bustle of skirts. Cauthrien hears greetings to a lord, a Comte, and she looks over. Zevran does as well.

It's him.

She has never seen him and he's thirty years older than the last time either of her parents did, but Zevran has caught a glimpse and their contacts more. Albret Lorraine is in his sixties, his long hair gone grey and restrained in a single braid that is festooned with feathers and golden trinkets. He doesn't wear a mask, not here, but there is paint around his eyes, fading slightly into the wrinkles surrounding them. He is tall and lean, his shoulders broad - built like a soldier, like the Chevalier he is, even if he no longer fights.

He wears purple silk and an identifying silver sash that fastens with the emblem of his house, a lapwing and twinned stalks of wheat.

"Time to go to work," Zevran purrs to her, nudging her to sit upright. She takes a deep breath and drapes herself over the back of the couch, eyes fixing on Lorraine. She tries to smile as she feels the couch bow slightly, then rise, as Zevran stands up. As he walks around the couch, he reaches out to play with a lock of her hair and she shivers, eyes falling half-lidded.

Lorraine notices. His eyes meet hers from across the room for half a second, his lips curving, before he turns back to the madame.

Zevran, too, goes to speak with the madame. He has no reason to speak to Lorraine, not yet, but he can certainly ask the owner about the price of a night with Cauthrien with a wink and a languid smile. Lorraine listens, his gaze finding Cauthrien again.

Cauthrien bites at the tip of her tongue to keep from hiding or rending the upholstery clenchedbeneath her fingers, the motion parting her lips.

Lorraine turns to the madame and Zevran, speaks with them for a moment. Zevran looks frustrated, put out- but the madame looks quite happy.

When Zevran returns to their couch, Lorraine is at his side.

" _Querida_ ," Zevran purrs, sliding back onto the couch with her again, "I'm afraid I've been outbid!"

"Oh," she says, eyes flicking to Lorraine, who settles down in the armchair arranged to face their couch. "That's a shame, serrah." She nudges him with a stockinged toe. He strokes her ankle and then sighs, withdrawing.

"I will suffer only watching. If that's alright with _monsieur_?" He stumbles slightly on the pronunciation.

Lorraine laughs, leaning back and gesturing to Cauthrien with crooked fingers. "I don't mind," he says. "Not as long as I have a pretty little thing. Come here, would you?"

Cauthrien flushes. She's never been called a _little_ thing; she's nearly six feet tall and is taller still with the damnable heels that Zevran has just strapped her back into. She slowly slips from the couch, coming over on slightly trembling legs that she attempts to disguise with an exaggerated sway to her hips. His hand finds her waist as soon as she's close enough and he tugs her towards him.

She bites down a surprised shout and colors to her ears, falling against the Comte. Zevran laughs behind her as Lorraine purrs, "Careful, careful," his hands sliding down to her hips and pulling her close.

As soon as he has her settled on his lap, he switches to Orlesian, his accent rolling and fluid and, she's certain, partially affected. The man isn't actually from Val Royeaux as he claims- she hears a hint of Jader there, and something else she can't identify.

"Ah, quelle délectabilité, et avec ces yeux si beaux, si fonce.[1]" His lips curl into a self-satisfied smile as he leans back in his seat once more. Cauthrien shifts to sit awkwardly on his knee, legs pressed tight together and lips set in a firm line that disrupts the enhanced pout of her lip paint. All of her relative ease from being draped over Zevran evaporates.

Lorraine chuckles. "Tu n’as pas de sourire pour moi?[2]"

She glances over at Zevran, who arches a brow expectantly.

Void take him.

Cauthrien takes a deep breath and manages a faint smile, one she hopes comes off more as shy than grim. With any luck, the thick paint on her face will help. "Je crains que je suis un peu timide.[3]"

He laughs again, one hand coming to rest on her waist, drumming along the thick layer of shaped fabric that confines her. She feels teetering and awkward, balancing, and he tugs her closer along his thigh. It is a... steadier seat, at least.

"Tue es nouvelle ici, non? Surement je n’ai jamais te vue auparavant.[4]" His hand slides up from her waist to trail along the scraps of silk Zevran has claimed make an appropriate breast covering. She shies away but manages to keep the absolute disgust off of her face. "Mm, t’as des… talents spécifiques, ma petite oiseau?[5]"

Her mouth drops open for a moment and he leans in, eyes fixated first on her lips, then the line of her throat, the curve of muscle in her shoulders. His wandering hand comes to rest on her upper arm.

He meets her eyes again. His lips twist to something more secretive, more testing as his fingers traces the curves of muscles.

She searches desperately for something she can offer him, something that won't have him dragging her upstairs already. She doesn't think she could handle it; she can barely handle the feel of his hands on hers, every inch of pressure and degree of heat a reminder that this is the Chevalier who tormented her family, her people.

A talent. She must have a talent.

"Je peux chanter,[6]" she finally offers, crossing her legs now, trying to ignore how that bares one of her hips as her stocking pulls away by tension, trying to ignore how his gaze dips to the expanse of skin.

"Ah! Tu dis que tu peux chanter.  Nous verrons.  Montre-moi.[7]"

She knows a total of two songs in Orlesian, both taught to her by her mother. One is undoubtedly appropriate for the situation. The other? Decidedly less so.

Cauthrien looks Lorraine in the eye, willing herself not to flinch. To challenge him as her mother, her father, her lord would want.

She starts to sing the second song.

Her voice is one trained in fields and in camps, rough and taking liberties with notes and melodies but able to carry a tune. She bats her eyelashes and twists her shoulders coyly, emboldened by the words in her throat. She is not a spy; she is direct and blunt and if she has to sit on this Orlesian bastard's knee in paint and silk and lace, she will sing the words she wants to sing.

It isn't a lilting song, not by nature, and she has to tame it into sensuality. The tone doesn't echo the words and heads begin turn. Zevran watches, head tilted, a smile teasing at his lips. He doesn't know. He doesn't notice, because he's fixated on her like he hasn't seen her before.

It gives her a little boost of confidence, of pride, of _you still don't know me after all_. It's her turn not to notice; Comte Lorraine is grinning at her and when she reaches the end of the song with a triumphant lift in volume, he snakes an arm around her shoulders, buries his fingers in her curled hair, and tugs her down so that his lips are inches from hers.

"Ma petite oiseau _fereldaine_!  J’avais pensé que j’entendais l’accent.[8] "

She flushes beneath her thick paint, heart beginning to hammer. She has nearly fallen against him, catching herself with a hand against his chest. He glances down at it. His grin widens. She can hear, behind her, the sound of movement- Zevran, shifting, no doubt perking up at the sound of her nation's name. He wasn't supposed to find out - but as long as he still takes her to bed, it shouldn't matter.

"Tu es une petite coquine audacieuse, pour tout ton timidité.  Devrais-je te approvoiser?[9]"

His words and how he rests his free hand on her thigh make her bristle, and all thoughts of going upstairs with him turn from horror to outrage. She catches the tip of her tongue between her teeth to still her hiss, and after a moment, responds with as much calm as she can find, "Vous êtes trop décontracté.[10]"

He chuckles. "Ma chérie, tu es une pute… n’est pas? Ou est-ce que ton masque se glisse, ma petite fereldaine avec les bras d’une soldate? Je croix que je sens le chien mouillé autour de toi, même au milieu de tous tes parfums sophistiqués.[11]" His lips brush her cheek as he leans in still further, bypassing her mouth by only a breath. "Ça ne me derange pas. Viens se coucher avec moi, hm?  Je vais voler cette chanson-là de tes lèvres avec le plaisir. Je peux meme t’enseigner quelques nouvelles.[12]"

Cauthrien takes a deep breath, slow and calming, and her hand slides up from his chest to his throat, his cheek. She knows Zevran is watching. She can't simply pull away from the man, turn him down, flee. So instead, she drags her lips across his skin, feeling stubble, smelling sweat and wine, smoke and perfumes. Her lips brush his and her stomach twists and writhes in disgust as he chuckles, his fingers kneading the flesh of her thigh. He relaxes the hand gripping the back of her head.

"Try," she whispers, body trembling from the effort of keeping herself in check, keeping herself to a single word and not a long-winded, angry taunt. His lips curl. She smirks back.

And then she draws back just enough to headbutt him hard. He shouts and falls.

She lifts one leg and drives her heeled foot hard into his stomach. His grip loosens and she all but throws herself out of his lap, dancing away as Zevran surges to his feet, shouting something in Antivan that doesn't sound at all flattering. Zevran grabs her wrist and tugs her down hard as a knife flies past them. He's fishing blades out of pockets she didn't know he had, eyes darting around the room.

" _What was that_?" he hisses when he finally lets go and she reorients herself. Her makeup has been smeared off of her forehead, an island of pink in a sea of white, and she can feel the press of the room on that bare patch of skin. It doesn't help that her head is throbbing; her technique is rusty.

"Fereldan rebellion song, from the war," she says with a grim smile as she stands up, heels kicked off. "Seemed appropriate."

He stares at her for just a moment, then whispers, " _Querida_ , you are a horrible person. And a horrible spy." It is not said kindly.

Then there's only noise and movement. Her hands itch for a sword but they turn to fists easily enough; she's trained and she's broken up more bar fights than she'd like to remember in the name of keeping peace between her soldiers and the local farmers. She tries to find Lorraine, but he's fallen back behind his guards- men in light mail or leathers who must have slipped in while she and Zevran were distracted in courting him.

She wants nothing more than to feel his skull crumple beneath her hands, finish the mission in an inelegant but effective way, but she settles for protecting herself and beginning to clear a path towards the exit.

As she hooks her arm around one of the brothel's guards and throws her over one hip, Cauthrien admits (grudgingly, and only to herself) that this has been one of the worst tactical decisions she's ever made. She would have done better to at least attempt to snap his neck. But it had been a momentary spike of pride and hatred, a need to make a fool of him before she killed him, to let him know what was coming.

She is not a woman moved by passions, except for where her country is concerned.

She likes to think she can hear Loghain's sharp bark of laughter (though it would be followed, no doubt, by a lecture. He hadn't lectured her in years, not since he'd first begun to involve himself in her training, but this- this would have earned one). She may be tarted up and painted within an inch of her life, but she's shamed one of the few Chevaliers who escaped Ferelden, has twisted his tastes into a weapon.

She doesn't know where Zevran is when she stumbles out the side door of the brothel into the streets, cursing her lack of shoes as gravel bites into her feet and tears at her stockings. Two of the mercenaries are there waiting for her; that leaves two inside, and she's just about to rush back in, shout orders and lead them out, when Zevran peers down from the roof and calls,

"Cauthrien, up here!"

The last two mercenaries stumble out of the room and slam the door closed. One stays holding it shut, the others look to her.

She takes a deep breath and tries to look the part of the leader. "Split up. Wait two days to make contact."

They scatter and she looks up to Zevran, who's waiting with a scowl plastered over his features. He points to a stack of crates and she nods. She scrambles up and catches onto a ledge he indicates. He leans down and hauls her the rest of the way up. When she can no longer see the alleyway beneath them, she hears the last mercenary let free the door, followed by the soft thudding of booted feet on packed earth.

"Zev-"

"This way. Move quietly," he hisses.

He leads her tripping over rooftops, moving fast and quiet. She has trouble keeping up and not sliding on tiles or angled roofs. She pauses a moment to tear out the bottoms of her stockings to get her better tracking, and then struggles to catch up once more. He does not wait long when she falls behind and he brings her to jumps that she can barely make.

He's quiet in a way that unsettles her deeply.

She should feel foolish, flouncing about on the tightly packed Jader rooftops in nothing but silk and her smalls, but the further they move from the brothel, the more distance Zevran puts between them, the more she wants simply to be reach him and be done. Her muscles begin to ache and she stumbles once, twice- and then Zevran catches her, one hand around her arm, and makes her stop. His eyes meet hers, hard and distant, and then he points to a ladder propped against the building they're atop.

She clambers down as Zevran drops lightly to his feet, fishing out a key and opening the door of the nondescript little building.

It's a safehouse she hasn't been in before that, in its general form, is a lot like the hovel she spent all those weeks in. There's one bed, smaller than the one in the brothel room they prepared in, and not much other furniture. A wash basin, a table. Two chairs. She looks it over as he closes the door behind her.

The lock clicks, and Zevran says, low and dangerous, "A Ferelden rebellion song."

She turns to face him. His eyes are narrowed and he moves forward with catlike grace. His clothing is skewed and torn, she sees, the collar of his shirt caught and ripped downwards, exposing tanned skin flushed from exertion. There's blood on his face, too, and dotting his hands and wrists.

"Seemed _appropriate_ ," he continues. "We had him- he was absolutely prepared to carry you off, even _after_ your little song. And then, what? You decide you are too good for my plan? Explain yout thoughts to me. I certainly do not understand them.

He begins to circle her and she goes from stunned to angry. Defensive. Her fists clench at her sides. "I didn't want to do this to begin with."

"And yet, you nearly managed it! Just a little more, just another bashful laugh, an apology, _something_ , and he would have been fighting the urge to throw you down onto the floor and have you there!"

"You couldn't understand what he was saying," she hurls back, and begins to circle him in turn.

"So? What was he saying, that your legs were pretty? That he'd like to kiss you?"

"That he'd _tame_ me."

"Ah, so the prideful _princesita_ returns in all her splendor! You were to be the picture of a whore for a night, Ser Cauthrien. That was all I asked of you-"

" _I am a soldier of Ferelden_ ," she growls, and she presses forward, sick of the dance between already. He lets her come close, not shying or flinching.

"You are a failure to your queen," he corrects, quietly. He smirks and she halts, breath catching in her lungs. "We might never get close to him again after tonight. And then where shall we be? Crawling back to your lady queen and Georgiana Cousland to beg forgiveness because _you are a soldier of Ferelden_? A soldier without an army, who fails at the first job given to her-"

She's not sure how hard she throws him against the wall, only that he laughs and is beginning to push himself away from it when she presses hard against him, her hands trapping his, her body flush against his. The contact makes her head spin, the soft and yielding reminder that she isn't in armor and neither is he.

She bends her head down to his, trying to push aside thoughts of a night she leaned against a tree and cried out for him so loudly that everybody mocked her for it in the morning, but her blood is thudding in her veins and the thrill of battle is still spiraling through her muscles and mind.

Her voice is a whisper. "I am not a failure."

"Then what are you?" he returns, chin tilted up, mouth close to hers. He moves his knee against her leg, stroking, and it might be to unbalance her. To embarrass her. To make her cringe away and hide.

It makes her shudder.

"I-" she says, words catching in her throat, sticking to paint covering her lips. Her hands tighten around his wrists, crushing them to the wall beside his shoulders. His fingers knead intothe inches of her arms that he can reach.

"Made a mistake," she finishes in an exhale. She grimaces, trying to regain the offensive. "I am _not_ a failure and we _will_ find another way."

Cauthrien means for the way she suddenly presses even harder against his body to be emphasis. She doesn't mean to gasp unsteadily at the contact or lick her lips.

"And you are so convinced of this? When you have headbutted our mark and made him quite sure of our faces?" he asks, and there's a note of purring in his voice. This time, it's dangerous. There's an edge she's never heard from him, not really, that's something like his earlier anger but- twisted. He rises onto his toes so that his lips are a breath away from hers.

She can't ignored how her pulse strengthens and quickens, how heat pools in her stomach, fighting with the ache of her stays for dominance. They combine into something else, something that makes her grip on him relax.

"I'm sure. The Crows only hire very clever men," she whispers.

He jerks against her and, at first, she thinks he's fighting- but it's a laugh, a laugh that starts deep and rolls through him. His slight smirk grows.

"I see that sometimes, you _do_ listen. Just not always when I'd like." He pulls against one of her hands. She releases him.

His hand finds her waist and she almost groans in frustration when he drops back to standing flat on his feet. But then he pushes forward and she gives, rolling, and soon it's him pressing up against her, his other hand sliding from hers to pin her to the wall.

He rises onto his toes again, stretching himself out against the length of her, and she finally registers the press of his erection against her thigh when he slides his knee between her legs. His mouth grazes the line of her jaw- and then he tangles a hand in her already-falling curls and drags her lips to his.

The kiss is soft at first, and his hold is gentle. She can break away and for a moment, she stiffens and doesn't respond, too confused by the sensation on soft on soft, even broken as it is with the layer of dry paint between them. Thirty-two and it's her first kiss since she was a child, playing at stories of romance. She'd never intended to let him, to ask him, to-

But it stokes the twisting fire in her stomach and she leans into it, coming to life again. There are so many things she thought had ended, that she would never do, when she let the Warden through the doors into the Landsmeet. Zevran seems determined to bring all of them back.

She groans and captures his lower lip between her teeth, clumsily. He growls in return and corrects her with bold movements, his tongue and lips practiced, and in return she sags against the wall, sliding down until she's half-supported on his bent knee. The change in angle gives him more access and his free hand slides along her cheek, nails scraping through the paint, before it coasts over her neck, her shoulder, her breast. He pulls the fabric aside and she gasps, arching into his touch. She rocks against his thigh, tensing, and her hands rise to tangle in his hair.

He pulls away long enough to drag her with him, to turn them to the small bed, to give her the smallest nudge that makes her release him for the moment it takes to fall back onto the hard straw mattress. He follows her down and the height difference stops posing problems from the moment his lips find her throat, nip down along the line of a muscle to the jut of her shoulder. He doesn't seem to care about the taste of paint in his mouth and it smears in his wake. Cauthrien's hands clutch now at his back, at the sheets, at anything she can gain purchase from and use to leverage herself up against his body.

She's dragging breathy laughs from him with her every response and anger floods through her, only to be replaced with an equally fiery surge of _need_ as he leans up and away just to slide one hand into her smalls. She bucks into his hand and he nips at her ear. She doesn't understand why that's pleasant, but it is, and her hands rise to tangle in his hair again, keep him close. She even, when he turns his head just so, takes the pointed tip of his ear between her lips and licks along the line of it, gently, remembering comments she'd overheard from other people about _sensitivity_ and _those delicate points_.

Zevran pauses and pulls away, quirking a brow.

"I will never understand," he says, softly, "why you humans all think that our ears are sex organs." Cauthrien colors and he catches a glimpse of it through her smeared paint. He grins and kisses quickly at her nose, then dips back to nurse at the spot just below where her ear curves to meet her jaw. She whimpers and arches, hands sliding down his back and pulling his hips flush with hers, his one hand still trapped between them.

"I never thought you'd want this," he breathes against her skin. She shivers.

"I never thought I would."

He rocks against her and she mewls and spreads her legs, wrapping them around his hips and holding him close, muscles taut. When he slides down along her body far enough to capture her nipple in his mouth, she shudders. His tongue flicks; her eyes go wide and she groans, arching.

Zevran lifts his head again and she glares even as she gasps for breath.

" _Do_ you want this?" he asks, and whatever predatory edge his voice had earlier, there's only concern for just those words. He doesn't move; he goes still and watches.

She swallows beneath his scrutiny, and while she wants to just cry Yes, yes, yes!, she makes herself think. She thinks back to what has always stopped her in the past, to why she's so rarely wanted this before, but all she can find is Loghain's face, his touch, the lingering promise of closeness that was never fulfilled. His words scrawled over a map she's left outside the gates of Jader. His imagined approval as she threw the mission.

That's not enough to stop her, not anymore.

"Yes," she says, at first a whisper, and then she repeats it again as she meets his gaze and stares him down. "Yes."

Zevran nods, that smirk returning. "Just checking," he purrs, and his fingers still nestled in her curls beneath her smalls twitch, slide, then delve and curl, pressing into her. They slide in easily as she lifts her hips against his, keening his name.

While his fingers work into her and his mouth returns to suckling at her breasts, it's all she can do to work at the buttons of his shirt, peel the fabric from him, rub her thumbs across the little splotches of blood dotting his skin. They flake away at her touch and she wants to kiss the skin that's been revealed, mimic his movements though she's never felt the need to kiss and touch and explore before. He has the advantage, however, and he keeps her mind spinning with every twist of his hand, with every touch of his teeth to sensitive flesh. Her mouth can't reach him and her hands become anchored around the waistband of his pants, unable to get between them to unfasten their laces.

Finally, when she's incoherent and whimpering and dancing along the edge, he pulls away and sits up, back on his heels. She has to loosen the vice grip of her legs around his hips and she whines at the loss of tension. "Come _here_ -" she hisses, and he laughs.

"Relax, _querida_." His fingers danced across the laces, and he is more clever with those than he's ever been with his tongue. He frees himself quickly, then slides his palms across her thighs, around her hips, against her back as he lifts her body and pulls her smalls just enough out of the way to bare her, like the night in Gherlen's pass. She twitches, suddenly eager to take the offensive, to regain control, to be on _top_ , but then he presses into her and her mind goes blank.

" _Oh_ ," she says, and there's that soft chuckle again. He lingers a moment, only just inside, until even the arch of her foot begins to relax- and then he fills her in a rough, hard stroke. His mouth finds hers to swallow her cry, and then he mumbles against her lips,

" _Querida_ , it is my solemn duty to inform you that you well and truly ruined today's mission." He thrusts again and her eyes flutter between staring open and languidly half-closed. Her toes curl and she grinds against him.

"I know-" she tries to growl, though it comes out more as a needy whine.

"Good." He nips at her lower lip and then leans back enough to take the better angle once more. She grasps at his shoulders and tries to pull him down, but all she can do is arch her back, straining against the stays of her corset as she groans his name, and rock against him as he grips her hips and buries himself in her again and again.

There isn't enough to roll, to turn him over, but soon it doesn't matter; she lets him have the match, relinquishing herself to the bursting pleasure of writhing against him, unpracticed and acting wholly on instinct. He corrects with hands that alternate between pressingly rough and achingly tender, and eventually, he covers her body with his again and presses kisses to her lips, her eyes, her throat, her jaw. She comes undone beneath him and it's unlike whatever stolen, shameful moments she's had in the past. The faint memories of ten years ago are replaced with every touch, every stroke, every feeling of being overwhelmed and yet not given enough.

Her cries reach the same crescendo as before, terrifyingly loud and needy, and he swallows them with kisses even while he continues to move, riding out her end and then pushing her further, bringing her back down instead of letting her fall, until he tenses, whispers her name, and spills within her.

The aftermath is quiet, soft; there's only the sound of breathing. She closes her eyes and feels him breathing. It feels good.

\--

Zevran is stretched out naked beside her, his fingers toying with the upper edge of the corset she still has yet to shed. She's settled along him, mind still blessedly silent, taking in the ache of him and of the night's excitement.

"So," he says, the first words he's spoken since they'd come to a shuddering halt twined around one another, " _why_ were you singing a Fereldan rebellion song in the first place, _querida_? Did you set out to sabotage me? Rather, us?"

She mumbles something unintelligible, stretching out and rubbing at her eyes. She doesn't remember words just yet, and it takes a few pops of her joints for her to retrieve them.

"He asked me if I had any talents." Her lips twist with disgust over the last word, remember the slight pleased slur to Lorraine's voice. "I said that I could sing."

"Not what he was asking, I don't think." Zevran shifts, turning carefully to resettle on his stomach, his upper body propped on his forearms.

"Probably not."

"Also not what I would have advertised."

Cauthrien rolls her eyes. "I am not you."

"Yes, I think we've established that very nicely," he concedes, considering her paint-smeared lips for a moment. "... But that was the only song you knew in Orlesian?"

She hesitates, considers lying, but whatever anger there was between them seems to have dissipated again. "No. I know two."

She thinks she sees a ripple of tension in his shoulders, but the light is dim. He'd risen earlier to set up a lamp on the lone table; she'd tugged him back down beside her as soon as he was within reach.

"And was the second one any more appropriate?" His expression turns dark. Cauthrien bites back a groan, not ready to go back to arguing. She pushes herself up, then stands, beginning to tug at the laces of her corset.

"... Perhaps a little," she says with her back towards him.

She hears him sit up, thinks she might feel heat against her back as if he's reached out to touch her- but if he has, he pulls away. "Sing it for me?"

She pauses in undoing the knot at the small of her back, licking her lips and considering saying no. But what reason does she have, aside from pride? Aside from not wanting him to know what she could have done if she had chosen to behave? So she takes a deep breath and, for the second time that night, begins to sing.

These words practically call for a lilting tone, and lilting comes easier than sweet, despite that being how she first heard the song[13]. There's no disparity between voice and meaning and she relaxes into it instead of glorying in it. Her fingers resume their work, and the corset loosens enough that she can slide it over her hips, shimmy out of it. She sighs at the release, even as her ribs take up ache in a thudding tempo.

Zevran shifts on the mattress behind, quiet except for a small, pleased hum.

When she bends to roll down her stockings, she realizes that somehow, she's ended up stripping as performance. She hesitates a moment before she lifts her foot to pull the now dirty, damaged fabric down and off, revealing scrapes and bruises she hadn't noticed before. Then she turns back to Zevran so he can watch as she rests her other leg on the mattress and bends along it to bare it.

His lips curl appreciatively.

She would never have believed she knew the song well enough that she can continue singing it even while her cheeks burn as she begins to undo the side ties of her ruffled smalls. Zevran's gaze is transfixed on her and she stammers and rolls her hips just a little. He grins.

With the last verse, she holds her smalls on while she _twirls_ , stumbles over her words and almost laughs with embarrassed delight, and finally lets the last of her clothing fall.

Zevran laughs and calls his approval.

She's singing Orlesian songs about taking life slowly and stripping for an Antivan Crow. How far she's come from standing beside Loghain Mac Tir- and yet this all feels like a relief, even when it feels not-quite-her, not-quite-real.

She comes back to the bed and Zevran reaches out to take her hands. He pulls her down on top of him and she kisses him without hesitation before stretching back out alongside him. He drapes an arm over her.

"That would have been a better song," he murmurs, nuzzling against her cheek.

"Probably."

"Especially if you did that little dance." He winks.

Cauthrien shifts, embarrassed all over again. "I'm never doing that again."

"No? But I enjoyed it so! We can practice a different sort, with you wriggling out of your armor and into my tent at night, yes?"

The mental image draws a choked laugh from her. "I don't think so."

"Well then- I have seen something rare and wondrous. I shall cherish the memory always."

Cauthrien rolls her eyes, then focuses on the bruise blooming over his upper arm, undoubtedly from the brawl. She reaches out to brush her fingers over it, wondering if it would have been better to have played her part.

"What now?" she asks, looking up and watching him across the short expanse of bed between them. Zevran hums thoughtfully and she quirks a brow, catches his leg in the crook of hers, squeezes. "Well?"

" _Adando se acomodan los melones_ ,[14]" he says, looking first at his fingers, splayed out across her waist, and then up to her confused expression.

"And that means-"

"Improvise, _querida_ , and things will work themselves out." His hand slides up along her flank and then captures her fingers where they rest against her shoulder. He pulls them to his lips, takes the tip of one into his mouth and lathes it with his tongue, before murmuring, "After all, the Crows employ only the very clever- and so does our Lady Cousland."

"Are you saying I could be a Crow?" she murmurs, eyes falling half-closed.

His answer is a laugh as he covers her body with his own once more.

\--

[1] _Ah, quelle délectabilité, et avec ces yeux si beaux, si fonce_ \- Ah, what delicateness, and with eyes so beautiful, so dark!

[2] _Tu n’as pas de sourire pour moi?_ \- You don’t have a smile for me?

[3] _Je crains que je suis un peu timide_ \- I fear I’m a bit shy.

[4] _Tue es nouvelle ici, non? Surement je n’ai jamais te vue auparavant_ \- You’re new here, no? Surely I’ve never seen you before.

[5] _Mm, t’as des… talents spécifiques, ma petite oiseau?_ \- You have [informal, the t’as is tu as slurred together] any… specific talents, my little bird?

[6] _Je peux chanter_ \- I can sing

[7] _Ah! Tu dis que tu peux chanter.  Nous verrons.  Montre-moi_ \- Ah! You say you can sing. We’ll see. Show me.

[8] _Ma petite oiseau fereldaine!  J’avais pensé que j’entendais l’accent_ \- My little Fereldan bird! I thought I heard the accent.

[9] _Tu es une petite coquine audacieuse, pour tout ton timidité.  Devrais-je te approvoiser?_ -You are a bold little hussy for your shyness. Should I tame you [like a wild animal]?

[10] _Vous êtes trop décontracté_ \- You are too familiar.

[11] _Ma chérie, tu es une pute… n’est pas? Ou est-ce que ton masque se glisse, ma petite fereldaine avec les bras d’une soldate? Je croix que je sens le chien mouillé autour de toi, même au milieu de tous tes parfums sophistiqués_ \- My dear, you’re a whore… right ? Or is it that your mask is slipping, my little Fereldan with the arms of a soldier? I believe I smell the wet dog around you, even in the middle of all of your sophisticated perfumes.

[12] _Ça ne me derange pas. Viens se coucher avec moi, hm?  Je vais voler cette chanson-là de tes lèvres avec le plaisir. Je peux meme t’enseigner quelques nouvelles_ \- That doesn’t bother me at all. Come to bed with me, hm? I will steal that song off your lips with the pleasure. I could even teach you some new ones.

[13] The song that inspired this scene is _Tout Doucement_ , if anybody's interested.

[14] _Adando se acomodan los melones_ \- "The melons find their place with the movement (of the cart)" or "improvise and things work themselves out."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when Cauthrien leaves her sword in an Orlesian brothel and Zevran doesn't trust her to continue the mission?

"Explain to me, again, how you had the time to get food, clothing, and Maker knows what else, and yet you couldn't be bothered to retrieve anything useful, like my sword?" Cauthrien snaps, fingers working intently at unraveling the fabric that makes up the ruffled smalls she's finally been able to replace with plain, comfortable ones. She's sitting on the narrow bed, shoulders tensed, bare to the waist in only a pair of too-short linen pants. She would have been fully clothed and out the door by now, but Zevran is sitting at the table on top of the rest of the clothing he's brought back for her.

Zevran shrugs. He's busying himself not with helping (or answering) her but by attempting to transform some Jader street food into something closer to a meal. He has brought back the yogurt substance he'd mentioned at the River Dane and is combining it with cooked meat, some vegetables, and some orange powder that she isn't sure she trusts. The whole thing looks like a mess and she's a hair's breadth away from stalking over to him and simply upending the table.

"Thief," she says instead, pointedly.

"Ah, but if I were to retrieve your things, I would truly live up to the name!" He shakes his head, not looking over to her. "And I have brought useful things back. Food is useful. So are my daggers."

"And your armor," she comments, thinly. "Oh, yes. Very useful. And yet I am sitting here with barely anything beyond these Maker-damned smalls, and-"

He finally looks over to her. "And you look quite fetching like that." He smirks, letting her see him leer, likely in an attempt to diffuse the tension that has been ratcheting up ever since he returned. "The Alamarri once ran into battle with only paint on their breasts, you know. I wouldn't mind applying some for you."

She glares.

He sighs and turns back to the table. "I could not retrieve them, _querida_ , because your sword is larger than I am and the madame would not appreciate me stopping in after the scene you caused the other day. Patience. I will find a way in, or, if necessary, ask one of our companions to take care of it."

 _Patience_. They've been living in this single room together for over two days, and while at first they passed the time in bed (or on the floor, or on the table), Cauthrien soon could only think about her armor and, worse yet, the Summer Sword, still languishing in a Jader brothel bedroom. Zevran has attempted to distract her with kisses and with stories, luring her into talking more about her time working for Loghain, and filling her head with more adventures than she has ever cared to know about Georgiana Cousland.

And then he'd gone out for news and supplies and left her locked inside with only these damnable ruffled smalls and a corset that she could barely get into on her own.

Whatever closeness they may have found with their bodies Cauthrien's tension and frustration has torn asunder once more. She rises from the bed now, tossing the ragged mass of ruffles to the mattress as she begins to pace.

She is starting to think he wants to keep her trapped in here.

"Then tell me why we did not send my things out with one of our companions? And why you have not asked one of them to retrieve them since?" she asks.

"To the first, you were not supposed to start a brawl. To the second, the madame would not respond well to one of ours coming back, even if it were not me, and would not hand them over to a stranger. When we have time, we shall go, apologize, pay for damages, and then run out the back with your things before she can count the gold. But until then, we wait." Zevran lifts his head once more to watch her as she walks by. "We cannot move yet, at any rate; I am almost certain I was being followed for a short stretch."

"Perfect," she mutters. All the more reason, in her mind, to press the attack; to wait until the enemy let his guard down might take weeks or even months, and with each passing day, the threat of discovery grows for every member of their team still out in the city. "We can't stay in here until we kill each other."

"I do not intend to kill you," he says with a small laugh. "Merely keep you penned up. This is not the time for you to go rushing in blindly."

"I would not do it blindly. Gather our mercenaries and I will plan-"

" _Querida_ ," he interrupts, rising from his seat and turning to face her full on. She bites down the urge to dart forward and grab her things; he would stop her without a second thought, and she does not appreciate the idea of him tripping her up and following her down to the floor. She can be too easily distracted that way, in her opinion. So she stands, instead, and crosses her arms protectively over her chest.

"What?"

He advances on her, all lithe limbs and easy motions that belie the tension she can now see in the tightness of his smile, the hardening of his eyes. Her ability to read him has increased tenfold in the two days they've spent trapped together.

"I have questions for you. We are being pursued by an enemy who has proven to be more dangerous than I first expected. If you want us to move- if you would like to actually see him dead- I must know that I can trust you."

She frowns. "Of course you can."

"Ah, no, I'm afraid I cannot. Why, exactly, did our Comte's name get you to come with me in the first place? I've been wondering ever since the queen told me to place the name before you to draw you out. And you do not strike me as being exactly like your lord, wanting death for all Orlesians who dare even look at Ferelden. No, your distrust and hatred is of the generalized but lazy sort. A strike against somebody if they catch your ire for other reasons. And yet, the other night, you sang a Fereldan rebellion song, headbutted a Chevalier, and started an all-out brawl while unarmed and wearing nothing but your smalls and some paint. That is not like you."

She stiffens, fighting the urge to look away.

"So, who is he? I need to know, _querida_ , before you bring all of Jader down around us."

"I thought we were done talking about the brothel," she grits out. It had been the first bone of contention between them, him teasing her about it whenever she threatened to march right back there in her smalls and retrieve her things.

"We are! I speak of the future. Who is he? He didn't recognize you, so I doubt you have a personal history with the man - one of Loghain's opponents? An old nemesis?" Zevran comes to stand only inches away from her, his hand reaching out to find her waist.

She steps back and it's a long, silent moment before she says, quietly, "No, he left before Loghain forced the rest of the Chevaliers out. He was given a portion of land that included my family's farm. My mother-"

Zevran's expression flashes irritation, then anger. "Cauthrien."

She continues without heeding him. "Her sister was taken by him and never came home again. The taxes were bad enough that all of the crops would go to paying Lorraine, fattening up his house, and we'd have nothing to eat. My father nearly died as a young man, trying to steal food back from Lorraine's estate. I never met him myself, though. He left just shy of two years after I was born. But the stories..." She glowers, the memories still just as strong as when she was a young woman, just as strong as when she'd made their plans in Gherlen's pass.

"And it wasn't just my family. The whole town still hadn't recovered when I was growing up. We'd destroyed the soil, trying to meet the quotas Lorraine set for us. We were forced to clear the forests, losing all of our hunting in exchange for the space to begin crop rotations again. It almost didn't work.

"The day I met Loghain was the day after we'd chopped down the last of the trees on our land. I was going out to burn the underbrush that was left, and he was riding in to town to assess the extent of the damage. And then people- people that I _knew_ , had grown up with, attacked him because of his armor and the way he sat his horse, because he looked Orlesian, because he looked rich. Because we were desperate and scared even though it was thirteen years after Lorraine had left."

Zevran has not come any closer, seemingly pinned by her glare, but his expression has turned dark and thoughtful. He does not look away or flinch.

"And _that_ is why I took the first opportunity to strike him. I can't do these subtle ploys of yours- I want to meet him in battle and break him, and instead, I'm sitting on his lap and he's joking about taming his 'little Fereldan bird'. I only wish I'd managed to do more damage before his guards got around him."

She smiles, grimly, then walks past him towards the chair. He doesn't stop her, turning to watch as she fishes out the breast band and tunic he's brought her. His eyes fix on her hands or her face, not on her muscles, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted body, as she dresses.

When she's done, he says, "You should have told me all of this before we even crossed the Hafter."

"And have you abandon me on the side of the road? No." She shakes her head. "I will finish this mission. I will not be- cast aside."

"Because _you are a soldier of Ferelden_?" he asks, testing with a wicked smile that means little.

She rounds on him and stalks close. "Because I admit that I failed the other day and I will _right_ it."

"And if you are not fit to be on this job? If you are just a liability? I could lock you away in here until he is dead. What would you do if I told you that our lovely queen has her father's armor and you must talk to _her_ to retrieve it, not me?"

She flushes with anger, pushing closer still. "Unfit to do this job," she mutters. "Me, unfit? And who are you to speak, coming in to Orlais not knowing your mark's history, and not speaking Orlesian?"

"Two languages is more than enough for any man," he says with a rough laugh. "And at any rate, the Game, it is not for me. Too... self-pleasuring? And for the wrong people."

She snarls at his deflection. When she steps forward again, he steps back for the first time. "You mean, not you."

"Haha, you understand me so well!" He sounds the slightest bit breathless now, and she hopes that it is a response to her anger and not to her filling his tall, muscled swordswoman fantasies he's told her so much about.

"I understand that you are as much a selfish idiot as I am proving to be," she says, voice dropping to nearly a whisper, as she catches him against the wall.

Carefully, very carefully, he reaches out to touch her waist again.

"Calm down, _querida_ ," he says, fingers inching up beneath the fabric of her tunic. "We are in too deep for me to lock you away now. But I need you to master yourself. Next time, we cannot fail- and so next time, I need to know what I am working with, and know that you will not break rank.

"A soldier of Ferelden can understand that, yes? It is not merely _Antivan_ logic?" He tilts his face up to hers, quirks a brow, moves his hips against hers.

She opens her mouth to respond, then frowns. He is not looking up at her with playful, amused lust or even interest. If she were to lean in, she thinks she might even catch an edge of fear.

That- isn't what she wants.

Those times he came to her as she attempted to drink her shame away are long gone. She will not launch herself at him or drag him kicking and screaming from her space. Her wounded pride that made her press him to the wall the other night had been gentler than this and more eagerly received.

He has earned whatever place he occupies with her and so she backs off, sucks in a deep breath, and runs her hand through her hair, loose and lank with only the barest hint of the curls he'd put there.

"I understand," she says, looking away and bowing her head just slightly.

She tries not to see how Zevran relaxes and walks past her with just the slightest catch in his step. "Good, good. Then tomorrow, we will plan. And I will retrieve your things, yes? And then we can all go in to glorious battle by the end of the week."

He doesn't look at her when he speaks and her stomach twists in a mix of embarrassment and uncertainty. She follows him to the table, sits when he indicates.

He falls into the chair across from her and spears a piece of the cream and orange colored meat with one of his daggers. It's in his hand before she can see him draw it, and a moment later he offers it out to her.

"Let us eat, shall we?" he murmurs, and she thinks she sees the smallest of smiles when she grudgingly fits her lips around the tip of his blade.

\--

The next afternoon finds them sitting in an alley three streets over from their safe house. They have a sheet of vellum unrolled between them on top of a box they've requisitioned from the pile that stops up one entrance to the alley. Zevran has fetched it from a drop box he arranged their first night in Jader, and as Cauthrien examines it, she mentally places the map in what she already knows of Jader's layout. It's a sketch of Lorraine's city estate, and an accompanying note says that there's been no evidence of him leaving the city. It's promising and the map's details are crisp and done with a confident hand.

"Do you have any new plans?" she asks, looking up the assassin sitting across from her, one leg bent at the knee and propping up his forearm.

"Mm, there's the rather straightforward one where you and the other people with lots of armor and pointy swords stand at the front door and make a lot of noise, and I sneak in the back. Or, you and the other people with lots of armor and pointy swords stand at the _back_ door and make noise, while I sneak in the front. Slightly less expected, yes?" He grins, then shrugs. "Other than those, no. Not particularly. If it weren't for your tender temper, I'd suggest walking you in the front door to finish what you started in the brothel, but you'd need to behave to stay out of his dungeon. If he let you in alive at all."

Cauthrien does her best not to respond at the barb. Dinner the night before has left them in an uneasy sort of truce. She'd fallen into bed with him again but still couldn't shake the feeling that he had been trying to appease her.

"And you can't go in on your own while I and the other armored people get ready for a quick getaway?"

"Too many guards. This is a job for more than one person, _querida_. Another assassin, I would be fine. But instead, I require the whole lot of you soldiers."

Cauthrien nods and bends back to the map, going over again what she knows about Zevran's team. The translators have been useful only as ears within the city; Cauthrien served as translator at the brothel, and since then, Orlesian has been the last thing on her and Zevran's minds. She considers ordering them out of Jader, lest they become targets. More important, though, are the mercenaries. Three trained to be fast and quick; the others are all metal-clad and battle-hardened. Intimidating, yes, but not optimum if any sort of stealth is required. She needs to know what their exact skills are beyond swordplay and armor mending, and the light infantry she has may not be trained to sneak, only to dodge and wear lighter armor. She knows their strengths and weaknesses in storytelling, in drinking, in sparring, but not in group combat. She feels unprepared and frowns.

She is determined to figure this out- not only to convince Zevran to trust her, but also for her own pride.

There's a sound at the mouth of the alley, an awkward coughing, and both Cauthrien and Zevran look up, Zevran's hand going to a dagger at his belt and Cauthrien reaching for the light sword he's lent her for her comfort. It's only Janine, the almost-Sister, and she waves before moving any deeper into their hiding hole.

"I've got news," she says. Her blonde hair is cropped short and she looks almost like a round-faced young man as she leans against one of the walls in her massive armor.

"And I have a question," Cauthrien returns, rising to her feet. "You said you trained to be a Sister?"

Janine purses her lips for a moment, then shrugs. "Yes. What of it?"

"Did you ever sneak into templar training?" Cauthrien hears Zevran laugh, a delighted, honest sound.

Janine cracks a smile as well. "I did indeed. My brother's a templar proper. For a while, I even considered moving to the Marches so I could train, too, but I think a few skills here and there serve me better than living in a Circle. Think we'll run into mages, commander?" She's a steady woman, good-humored and just the slightest bit too crude and forceful to ever look right in peach and pink, and Cauthrien is glad to have her.

Cauthrien nods. "It's a distinct possibility. I'd prefer to have every advantage possible - it's looking like we're just going to be running distractions, and I don't want to lose anybody to that."

"Yes, ser. I'll practice a bit before the big day." She cuts a short salute, fist raised to her temple, before looking between Cauthrien and Zevran. "Though the news I have might change your mind somewhat."

Zevran stretches and rises from where he's sprawled. "Go on."

Janine looks down, wiping at a spot of imagined dirt on the sash she wears around her waist. "It looks like the Comte is looking for you, commander. And is trying to find out exactly who you are."

Cauthrien's jaw clenches. "I see."

Zevran frowns. "Expected, though. At least, not surprising. We'll just have to keep you tucked away." Cauthrien glares for just a moment before she can hide it. Zevran pretends to have not seen it, continuing, "How is he looking for her?"

"He asked the madame of the brothel, of course. And his men have been asking around- and have become increasing more... forceful in their inquiries."

"Does he have any reason to know you're associated with us?" Cauthrien asks once she is sure her voice will hold and not give away any of the surge of anger racing through her. The thought of him giving chase sends her skin crawling and her fingers itching, and the image of him taking her men is unacceptable.

The mercenary shakes her head, though, and Cauthrien's sudden fear subsides just a fraction. "Not that I'm aware of."

She hadn't been at the brothel that night. But the others- Zevran meets Cauthrien's eyes and nods. "Tell everybody who was there the other night to go to ground," he says. "It would be best if you were the only one to continue talking with us."

Cauthrien sighs and rubs at her temples, then crouches back down by the map. "We'll need to move quickly, before he gets any closer. Zevran-"

He holds up a hand. "Yes, yes. I will take care of it. Janine, fill Cauthrien in on any other news, if you will? I'll return shortly, though possibly with bruises and whip marks." His lips twitch into a small, tense smile and his eyes turn in the direction of Lorraine's estate for just a moment. She isn't sure what the look on his face means. But then he laughs, turns to her, and says "Put me back together before morning, yes?" with an arched brow and a familiar, lascivious smile. And then he slips into the growing shadows of the alleyway and out into the main street.

Cauthrien watches after him. "Void take him," she mutters, and Janine laughs. Cauthrien shoots her a glare. "He doesn't tell me exactly what his plans are- for all I know, he could be going to assassinate the Comte right now, and not to get my armor."

"But if he succeeds, we all go home sooner and happier." Janine comes to sit near her, eyes drifting over the vellum. "... That looks about right."

"You've been by?"

"A few times, when I could find somewhere else to be heading that passed conveniently close by. Still, our friend the cartographer's made a few mistakes." The woman indicates two spots near the back. "This hill is much steeper than he noted - and if we approach after a storm, it will be too slick to climb and too dangerous if we should fall near it."

Cauthrien leans forward to make a few notes, sinking with relief into planning the logistics of a strike. Just like arresting the Warden, she tells herself, but with an assassin holding the back and an enemy who is nowhere near Georgiana Cousland's level of dangerous.

\--

Zevran doesn't come back that night.

When dusk falls and Cauthrien is still without armor or weapon, Janine leaves her secreted away in the house. She returns before midnight with a mail shirt, a set of second-hand leathers that barely fits Cauthrien's tall frame, and a sword that has been 'liberated' from somebody Janine will not mention in any detail. They sit in the gloom of the house with the map between them, peering at it, waiting for it to tell them something new. They don't speak about the missing assassin, despite the growing weight of nervousness that bows Cauthrien's shoulders and makes her begin to pace again, but when Cauthrien asks if Janine is going to leave, the mercenary shrugs and says that perhaps it is not as safe on the streets as they had expected.

Janine takes first watch.

The next morning is much the same. No assassin, small talk, plans that rest on empty assumptions. Cauthrien suggests for the first time procuring horses to make a quick escape, meeting all of the noncombatants a day's or more travel outside of Jader. They throw the idea back and forth, Cauthrien considering what funds Zevran brought and where they're currently distributed, Janine trying to decide how to go about notifying everybody and buying the animals without Lorraine noticing.

As the sun sets, they decide to send the noncombatants out and leave the _how_ of the horses for later. Janine leaves with promises of returning quickly and, with any luck, with news, dinner, and Zevran.

Cauthrien paces again once she's alone. Her hair is pulled back as tightly as she can manage it, the tension giving her the slightest of headaches. It's a distraction, much like planning with Janine. Zevran's disappearance has left her more than unbalanced; it's left her scared. He could be dead, after all, or perhaps worse- or he could simply have given up and left. The last thought makes something inside of her twinge. She thinks it's her pride.

She keeps coming back to his expression when she told him about Lorraine, and later, his expression just before he'd disappeared. Something had been there, and she'd missed it.

She's popped every joint in her fingers, moved the chairs, gone through five sets of exercises, and sat staring at the door for over half an hour by the time Janine comes back, alone. She tosses Cauthrien a peach and says nothing until Cauthrien has taken a bite, chewed, and swallowed.

And then she slides a bag from her shoulder. She pulls from it a small box, which she sets on the lone table, still covered by the map, and a folded note sealed with burgundy wax.

"These are for you," Janine says, and her expression is blank. "The Comte's men found one of ours. Left him mostly alone, but said to get these to you."

Cauthrien comes close and picks up the letter. She stares at the seal- lapwing and wheat, now too-familiar- and hesitates before breaking it open.

 

 _Petite fereldaine avec les bras d’une soldat:_

 _Je regrette sérieusement la nature violente de notre séparation l’autre jour. Je vous ai cherchée  
depuis ce temps-là pour présenter mes excuses, pour réaffirmer mon offre de vous enseigner quelques nouvelles chansons, et pour retour plusieurs des vos affaires. Vous voyez, Vous avez oublié votre armure et votre épée à deux mains—pas de soucis, j’ai prodigué des soins à eux. Mais le style de l’épée semblait familier, et après un examen plus approfondi, je me suis rendu compte que c’est une Vercenne! Une Vercenne avec une histoire très intéressante, en effet._ [1]

 

Cauthrien's blood runs cold and she stops reading. If Lorraine has her arms-

Then what did Zevran find when he returned to the brothel? She swallows hard and forces her eyes to focus on the scrawling script.

 

 _Qui peut posséder cet épée? J’ai demandé autour de moi—j’espérais de la retour et de voir votre visage ravissant encore une fois—mais imaginez ma surprise quand j’ai découvert que non seulement personne ne sait où vous êtes, mais en plus que vous avez déjà une petite peu de réputation._

 _Vous êtes vraiment le jouet, le chouchou du grand Loghain Mac Tir? Nous faisions le deuil avec une grande ferveur! Chacune de ses possessions mérite un peu de respect._ [2]

 

Janine looks up at Cauthrien's barked, nearly hysterical laughter. It's been a surprisingly long time since she's been accused of being Loghain's toy this directly, and for a moment, the shock of it overwhelms the frantic questions of how much else he could know and what that might mean to him.

Great respect.

She doesn't want his 'great respect' or anything it might entail.

 

 _Mais je divague. J’essayais de vous trouver, mais votre ami aux oreilles pointues refuse de donner un nom. Heureusement que vos autres collègues ne sont pas aussi discrètes que vous, ou aussi peu communicatif que lui._

 _J’espère que cette invitation vous trouve bien. J’aimerais bien vous revoir—porteriez-vous de la soie et de la dentelle une fois de plus? Mais laissez le visage exposé, je voudrais voir votre expression._

 _J’espère que vous trouvez le paquet inclus avec ce message persuasif, Cauthrien. Je vous attends impatiemment. Vous allez me trouver chez moi—pas de cacher, pas de tricher._

 _Avec nostalgie,  
Albret Lorraine_ [3]

Cauthrien pales once more as she continues reading, her eyes fixing on her own name, then on _pointy-eared friend_. Her fingers tighten on the paper, nearly tearing it before she drops it onto the table. She picks up the small box that accompanied it, her fingers sliding over the fine wood. The same lapwing surrounded by stalks of wheat is engraved on the top. She feels her throat go dry.

"What did it say?" Janine asks, looking between the letter and her. "The man it was given to said the Comte's messenger had told him nothing except to get it to you. What-"

"He has Zevran," Cauthrien says, flatly. "Along with my armor and my sword. And my name."

Janine blinks once, twice, then hisses, " _Shit_."

Cauthrien nods tightly in agreement, one finger dancing along the clasp.

"And the box?" Her voice has become the slightest bit harder and she steps up close beside Cauthrien.

"A _persuasive gift_ , apparently. He wants me to come visit him." She shakes her head, lips set in a firm line, and sets the box down. She won't open it. She doesn't want to know what's inside, what Lorraine might imagine is a lure to her. So instead, she looks up and meets Janine's gaze and says, "Though he didn't specify alone, even if he did request I do it in my smalls," with her lips quirking into an angry, wicked smile.

Janine snorts. "Arrogant bastard." But her words are hollow and her eyes fix on the box even as Cauthrien's smile falls and she walks away from the table, arms crossed over her chest and finger tapping irritably against her borrowed armor.

Cauthrien doesn't look at her when she says, flatly, "We make plans tomorrow. This ends by nightfall." She will not let this be a mad rush to save Zevran, even as her hatred for Lorraine claws its way up into her throat and tries to wrap itself around her brain and take over entirely. No, she can't rush in blindly. This mission has taken her dignity, one of her most cherished possessions, and now a man who brought her out of the depths of her own despair and forced her back onto her feet.

"And if this is a trap?" Janine asks, her jaw tight and tense.

" _If_?" Cauthrien shakes her head. "No, it is. We can only hope that his arrogance makes him sloppy. And that we can get Zevran out. If he's functional, that's all the better. We'll probably need him." Her voice twists over the words, wavering in pitch, and she quashes it into submission with a tightening of her jaw.

Janine lifts the box, looking over to Cauthrien with what she finally registers as fear. Well-hidden, but there. "And this?"

Cauthrien is about to say to leave it, burn it, but she watches how Janine's fingers at first tremble and then clutch angrily at the wood. The box might only hold flowers or frilly smalls, anyway, and she hisses to herself that knowing everything before going in is what is most important. So she holds out her hands and Janine passes it back to her. Her thumb dances over the clasp again, hesitates, then flicks it up. She eases the lid open.

And grimaces, every muscle in her body going rigid with anger. "Oh, Maker's mercy."

There are two fingers inside, tanned with nails trimmed just like Zevran's, with small scars and callouses. Cauthrien knows his hands too well to doubt their owner, but included beside them, cushioned on plush velvet, is the delicate pointed tip of an elf's ear.

"What is it?" Janine asks, reaching out a hand, her own expression turning to more obvious panic when Cauthrien's face pales.

Cauthrien turns the box to her.

"What are the chances that those aren't- his," Janine finally gets out, looking away from the box in Cauthrien's hands. Her fear has been replaced by fury.

"They're his. Lorraine wouldn't lie about having Zevran. It would be too dangerous. He has him." Cauthrien closes the box and sets it down, carefully. She tries not to think about what it might mean, about Nicholas the soldier-turned-translator who can't hold a sword anymore, about people she has seen broken and has broken herself. Zevran is strong, she reminds herself. Strong in a way she doesn't entirely understand, perhaps, but he will be alive, and he will recover.

"Tomorrow night," she repeats, voice hard and eyes fixed on the tip of Zevran's ear, her blood pounding war drums in her head.

 

\--

[1] To the little Fereldan with the arms of a soldier:

I truly regret the rather violent nature of our parting the other day. I have been searching to find you ever since to present my excuses, to reaffirm my offer that I teach you a few new songs, and to return a few of your things. You see, you forgot your armor and sword- no worries, I took care of them. But the sword's style seemed so familiar, and after looking it over, I realized that it is a Vercenne! A Vercenne with quite a history, too.

[2] Who could own this sword? I began asking around, hoping to return it and to see your lovely face once more- but imagine my surprise when I find that, not only does nobody seem to know where you are, but that you have the slightest bit of a reputation already.

Are you truly the plaything, the pet of the great Loghain Mac Tir? We mourned his loss so fervently! Anything of his deserves great respect.

[3] But I ramble. I have been trying to track you down, but your pointy-eared friend will not even give me a name. Luckily, your other associates are nowhere near as discreet as you have been, nor as uncommunicative as he is.

I hope that this invitation finds you well. I would very much like to see you again- would you wear the silk and lace once more? But please leave your face uncovered so I can see.

I hope you find the package included with this note persuasive, Cauthrien. I will await you eagerly. You will find me at my home - no hiding, no tricks.

Longingly (lit: with nostalgia),  
Albret Lorraine


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cauthrien has eight mercenaries, a set of stolen and borrowed equipment, seventeen years of training, a whole lot of anger, and an assassin to rescue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Vague references to past torture.

His estate is four stories high and doesn't sprawl nearly as much she would have expected, even warned by the maps. There is no curtain wall like there would be in Denerim; it's all one building with what look like towers at each corner poking up just a few floors above the roof. The first floor shows no windows and what windows there are are small, and the whole building is made of stone. The gate to the front courtyard and other seemingly random spots are carved intricately with scenes from the Chant of Light and higher up are gilded designs. Gargoyles stare down from the roof and Cauthrien thinks she can see jeweled eyes glinting in the afternoon sun.

The whole thing is ostentatious and arrogant. Denerim is just as crowded as Jader, and yet the Arl of Denerim's estate is still walled and purely practical on the exterior.

The front gate is lowered and she frowns at it from where she and the mercenaries are camped across and down the broad thoroughfare.

"He's not going to let us all in," she mutters.

Janine, at her elbow, laughs grimly. "You thought he would?"

"I thought he'd at least have the gate open." She taps a gauntleted finger (she's borrowed a few pieces of armor from the other mercenaries) against her chin. "We'll have to force it once a few of us are through, and he won't like that. We'll be showing our hand a little early."

"And I still think he would know what we were planning the moment you marched the eight of us through his front door."

"He's arrogant. It was possible he could just be intimidated." She shrugs, then turns to survey to group. Apart from Janine, she has seven other mercenaries to draw on. Three are light infantry in leathers with quick weapons. The others are like Janine, walking bulwarks with weapons that crush. She falls somewhere in the middle, itching for her usual mail and plate.

She pulls Janine in to what will amount to her guard (she hates the sound of that), as well as an archer, a quick and nimble elven swordswoman who eschews even a shield, and a man who towers over even her and carries a hammer. They look a motley bunch, but there's no helping it; even if she took all of her mercenaries in heavy armor, they would be mismatched and awkward, personal armor and weapons of varying ages and styles.

No, she builds for versatility.

Janine had earlier suggested she stay behind and lead the second band, but Cauthrien simply shook her head and said, "Mages."

So that gives her one just-as-good-as-a-templar, an imposing wall who can break walls, a distracting and fast little woman who would fill Zevran's role, and an archer whose claim to fame was being able to scale a three-story building in under three minutes. It would do.

She lays out plans quickly and calmly, slipping into her commander's voice just as Janine falls back into attentive subordinate. She's grown close to the woman over the last few days and they've taken to bantering, but here, now, is no longer the place.

"The five of us will attempt to walk in the front gate. If the rest stay out of sight, there's a chance that he won't lower the gate immediately. If the opportunity presents itself, take it; otherwise, we will attempt to both end the engagement quickly and open the gate as soon as possible from the inside. There's no knowing how many guards he'll have with him, or if he'll even receive us if I don't come alone. If he's shy, then we force the encounter.

"Taking down Lorraine is top priority. Finding Arainai follows directly on that. There is a chance that he is already dead. If not, he is injured and likely unable to fight. He's been in there three days, and the Comte does not strike me as a gracious host to assassins who hold their tongues. If Arainai is dead or dies in the conflict, I will personally ensure that the Crown pays each and every one of you. I expect loyalty in this last push.

"From what we know, there's a stable just off the main courtyard. When the job is done, we will take on the responsibility of liberating all of those well-bred Orlesian steeds. The Fereldan cavalry could use some new blood." There are a few laughs among the group and her lips curl in a thin smile. "And if anybody sees my sword, I'd appreciate it back." More laughter. If these were soldiers, she might have felt awkward admitting her lost equipment, but here it's the sort of joke that makes her seem real and approachable. She just hopes that whatever Zevran has promised them is enough to keep them with her.

"Maker protect us all."

They break just as the Jader chantry begins ringing the bells that mark the hour. Janine comes to her elbow and says, lightly, "Seems like a good time to start singing to Him, huh?"

"If the others want it, go right ahead."

"You don't?"

Cauthrien purses her lips, then shrugs. "I don't want to waste the time, but if more people than just me want it, I'll certainly kneel."

"Ah, good to know we have a reasonable Andrastian leading us in." Janine's small smile widens into a grin. "The Maker, in my experience, greatly favors pragmatism.

"And you think my plan of _rush the enemy until he's dead_ is pragmatic?"

Janine shrugs. "He also favors boldness. Let's just hope you've got the right mix going."

\--

It takes twenty minutes for Lorraine to open the gate.

 _Well_ , Cauthrien thinks as she watches the metal slowly rise, _it took him twenty minutes to **choose** to open the gate_. She can see through to the front door of the estate; it's up a short set of steps from the courtyard and standing at the top if Lorraine, dressed in-

Her breathing stops.

He's wearing full Chevalier plate, plate that went out of style three decades ago but is as familiar to her as the weight of a sword in her hands. It's not his- it's _not_ \- and she keeps repeating that to herself as the gate winches up into place and she and her impromptu guard step through.

It's not Loghain's; the pauldrons are reversed, and she notes from how he wears his sword that he's left handed.

Well, that will make things interesting.

She has her composure back as they stride into the courtyard. A quick glance around tells her that the majority of Lorraine's men stand before him. There are two archers up in the windows facing the courtyard, but their bows don't appear to be nocked. Not yet.

She stops a ways back from the center of the courtyard yet, unwilling to cut herself off entirely. The gate behind them remains open.

"Ah, Ser Cauthrien!" Lorraine calls when she stops moving. She meets his gaze but does not respond, and he chuckles, lowering himself one step. "I see you did not take my advice on your attire. A pity."

Cauthrien frowns at his use of Common; he intends to embarrass her, she thinks, letting her guard understand. But it makes this easier and more pleasant for her, even as her shoulders tense and her chin rises in indignation.

"You already know that I am not a whore. It would-" she pauses, considering just how much she wants to bait him. (A lot, she thinks, but really, the question is how much she _should_ -) "It would be shameful, coming here in a disguise we both know is false. I am much more comfortable in this."

"Ah, but it's not yours! I think you would look better in your own armor, my dear."

"Then hand it over."

"Hah! Of course, my dear Cauthrien- but only if you strip out of _those_ rags first."

It seems her time with Zevran has given her at least one advantage: she does not blush. She does, however, narrow her eyes and say, "Must I repeat myself in Common to make you understand? You are too familiar."

He laughs again, wrinkled skin creasing further, and beckons her towards him. "Come now, don't be like that. I'm sure that we can come to a... pleasant enough arrangement. My offer still stands, and I'll even give you back your little elven toy!"

 _He is not a toy_ is replaced before she can speak with, "He is not _mine_ , Lorraine."

He flinches at the lack of title but hides it well. "Oh?" he asks, lightly, taking another step down towards her. His guards part. She hears Janine shift at her right. The gate has yet to lower again and Cauthrien can only hope that the remaining mercenaries have sidled up to the building and are close to the entrance.

"I have no claim on him except that he works for the same employer," Cauthrien says, levelly. She itches to have her sword in her hand, but to walk in with weapons drawn or to draw her weapon now would be impolitic and, more importantly, dangerous. So she crosses her arms over her chest instead, eyes never leaving the Comte.

"The marks on his throat would suggest otherwise. He was quite happy to boast of their provenance, even if he wouldn't give me your name. How did you find my gift, by the way? Was it... stimulating?"

"A great conversation piece, surely," she responds, voice dry. She will have to tell Zevran not to brag about that sort of thing in the future. She doesn't know how many more bits of his body he can spare.

Lorraine frowns, seemingly at a loss for words. Finally, he sighs and shrugs, holding out his armor-clad hands. "Cauthrien, lovely little Cauthrien, do you really delight in games like this? What will it take to win you? Our retaking of Ferelden?" He grins. "Is that just the sort of thing to bring you to your knees? I _will_ have you there, make no mistake."

Cauthrien grits her teeth and fights not to respond, her eyes narrowed to slits and the muscles of her jaw and throat jumping. Her right hand twitches, eager to take up steel. She sees red at the mention of invasion, red at his arrogance, red at his obsession with a Fereldan farmer's daughter who stands not for something unobtainable but something that is to be crushed and conquered and taken.

She wonders if Zevran's spies told him that much. A fetish for Ferelden.

"You know," he continues, taking the final step down to the ground, now with only two guards between him and her, "without all of your paint, you look familiar."

No. No, she will not give him the time to remember her aunt, to place her any more than he already has. There's the softest mess of sounds behind her and she can make out leather and metal and breath, and so she lifts her chin.

"I'm not interested in reliving your good old days," she says, simply, and then reaches back to unharness her sword, her other hand raising up in a fist as she bellows the order to attack.

Lorraine has come too far down the stairs and he scrambles to put his guards between her and him, but she's fast and the guards are surprised at how soon the courtyard fills with armed men and women, and she manages to push through the guard and unbalance two of them so that they tumble down in a crash of armor.

Lorraine has his sword drawn and raised by then, and he edges back towards his open door. The landing they're on is too small to maneuver and so she can only force him into the interior, getting herself through the doorway at a crouch in case there are any strung traps waiting.

There aren't, and the moment she straightens he's on her, sword cutting low and shield pushing to her right, attempting to catch her sword before she can bring it into guard. She's forced back into the side wall but gains enough space and leverage to push his shield away and bring her sword before her.

It's like sparring with Loghain, only a mirror image who is far more out of practice and far more intent on doing real damage. At first she attempts to mirror her own moves, but that proves too complicated on the first real engagement. From then on she forces herself to ignore the similarities in size, in armor, in weapon. They fight differently, she realizes in the back of her mind, and she can use that to her advantage.

He will not unsteady her with a gleaming flash of thirty-year-old metal.

He growls something in Orlesian, but she can't hear it above the roar outside of pitched battle. It begins to spill into the building as she forces Lorraine back across the entry room. The two great front doors are mirrored directly across the room and are propped barely open. He ducks between them and she follows.

Those doors open on to a grand ballroom, its furniture covered in white sheets and carpets laid down to protect what must be a floor of polished, inlaid wood if anything she's heard about Orlais is true. Their footsteps are muffled as she presses forward and then is pressed back. He won't let her get close enough to catch and throw him down, and she circles warily. Her eyes flick towards one of the curving staircases leading to a balcony above just as Janine runs full tilt up it, not pursued and not pursuing.

And then Lorraine darts in from her right, faster than she'd expected, and while she brings her sword up in time to stop his, he slams his shield hard into her chest and she goes down. He laughs and hisses,

" _Enfin je t'ai à mes pieds, salope fereldaine!_[1] "

She gasps for breath as she rolls onto the curve of her back and kicks up, driving her booted feet into left knee. He howls and she has just enough time to get back on her feet and circle around, blade poised.

There are others in the room now, seemingly all of his guards and all of her men, and she sees more metal flash up the stairways. She growls as she barely parries a downward cut towards her shoulder courtesy of Lorraine before side-stepping a pike thrust towards her side by a guard. She's pushed away from Lorraine just enough that he falls back and joins his other men on the stairs, while she catches the pike on her half-sworded blade and closes enough that she can unbalance him and take him out in echo of the same way she did the hurlock all those weeks ago by West Hill.

And then it's her turn to take the stairs two at a time, as she shouts out orders behind her.

"Hold the stairs!" she cries, and the mountain of a man in armor crashes his hammer into the skull of one of the Orlesian guards before taking up position at one end of the staircase. One of the other heavy mercenaries who followed in the second round takes the other end. An arrow flies past her and lodges in a guard's throat and she kicks the body down behind her as it falls.

Lorraine comes at her with sword raised and shield in front of his chest. She brings her blade up and around and meets his from the left, pushing in fast and catching his shield on her shoulder. He may still practice, may still know how to handle a sword, but she's taller than he is, and younger. She's stronger, too, and she forces his shield arm against his chest as she steps her right foot around him and forces his sword up and back. She lowers her sword, pommel towards his head, and as he brings his sword back down and around on her left, she catches her right arm across his throat. Her left hand grips the blade of her sword and she forces her right knee up as she pulls back. He tries desperately to crash his shield into her face but she ducks and completes the throw, rolling him over her leg as she turns.

She completes the spin with her sword pointed at his gut and stabs down just as he rolls away.

She follows but it's hard striking him on the ground, and he stumbles away far enough that another of his guards intercepts and she's forced to parry and engage. She tries to keep one eye on him as he scrambles to his feet, anger twisting his face, but she has to look away to stay alive, to maneuver out of a hold, to drive her foot into the guard's gut with enough force to send him tumbling over the railing.

By that time, Lorraine is halfway to a small door around the horseshoe of the balcony, two more guards falling in to place to cover his exit.

He snarls as his eyes meet hers and shouts, " _Tu vas baiser ma cravache alors que tu suces ma bite parce que je suis chevalier, et tu es pire qu’une chienne, conasse fereldaine! Je vais te punir!_[2] "

The moment he's through the door, Cauthrien stalks forward with her sword held out behind her in Nebenhut[3]. There's a flash of memory and she remembers Janine streaking through that door not five minutes before. Her pace quickens.

Another arrow finds one of the guards and sends him sliding down the wall with a scream that falls into a gurgle, and the other expects her to go right when she goes left and ends up with one less head than he started with.

She's panting for breath as she pushes into the dimly lit, narrow hallway that leads off the balcony. She closes the door behind her before advancing slowly, eyes darting to each side. Each room she passes she looks in to, then closes when she's sure it's empty. It's slow going and in the growing quiet as the noise of the ballroom falls away, all she can hear is her pulse and the whisper of _you're going to lose him_.

She can hear something ahead of her down the hall, but she can't make out what it is besides metal on metal. It could be Janine or Lorraine or both. She picks up her pace, clearing rooms as fast as she can.

One of the last rooms before the hall ends in a large, ornate door is dominated by a large stone sarcophagus with its lid toppled off the side and leaning barely propped. She barely notices except for a glimpse of red, and then she slows.

Three dead mages ring the box.

 _Janine_.

She enters the room and hurries to the sarcophagus, but there's nothing there except a few smears of blood, a few pale, blonde hairs.

She takes a deep breath and then runs from the room, to the ornate doors, and out them.

A long staircase winds down into a garden, and she can see a glimpse of metal through carefully manicured bushes and trees. Cauthrien forces herself to descend slowly and watch her footing, but as soon as she's on the ground, she slinks along paved pathways, looking around for any sign of Lorraine.

There's harsh panting and she turns in its direction. It leads her into a circle-shaped plaza with a labyrinth set into the stone below her, and there is Lorraine, clutching at his chest and glaring hard at her.

"There you are," she says, advancing.

" _Stand down_ ," he hisses in Common, as if she will be more apt to listen to him if he speaks in her tongue. "I don't know what you want, but-"

She doesn't reply, merely darts forward with her sword cutting up, and he shouts, parries, and manages to catch her gauntlet on his shield and force her arm up. She loses her tight grip on her sword and he uses the opportunity to unbalance her and knock her to the ground. Her sword goes skittering across the paving stones, and she grabs his downward stabbing blade in time only to deflect it, the edge cutting across her jaw in a searing line of heat.

He's ended up balanced on one knee to drive his blade down, and she keeps hold of his sword as she hooks a leg around his waist and pulls, rolling them. She crashes her elbow hard enough against the weak underside of the elbow joint of his armor and he hisses, grip relaxing enough that she pulls his blade from his hand and turns it on him. He tries to throw his shield up in front of him again, but she drives her other shoulder onto it. It leaves her awkwardly bent over him, her legs and hips holding his down, her upper body pinning his shield, the sword caught between the neck of his armor and his jaw.

She presses down.

Lorraine swings his unpinned arm up and his fist connects with her jaw but she falters only on her grip on his sword. He curses as she slips and draws blood but does not press hard enough to kill. She's shifting back, grasping for his free wrist desperately, when she hears a low chuckle.

Zevran drops to one knee at Lorraine's head, and she watches as his left hand- whole, undamaged- presses a dagger to the line Cauthrien has created. Lorraine's eyes widen and he thrashes, leaving Cauthrien to pin him down, abandoning the sword to better hold him.

"You told me," Zevran murmurs, eyes flicking up to her, "that I was to never steal your kills or come to your rescue again. So, here we are. You may have the honor." And he twists his hand so that she can easily take the hilt of his knife.

She stares down at Lorraine, then shakes her head.

"No. I think you had better go ahead."

Zevran makes a pleased little sound, one she's heard in bed and conversation, and he draws the blade almost tenderly across Lorraine's throat. He leans in close as Lorraine's pupils dilate and his body bucks up against Cauthrien's.

She hears him whisper, " _Éso es para ponerme en esa caja._[4] " And then he sits back, watching as Lorraine thrashes and fights as the blood slowly drains out of him.

Finally the man falls still, eyes going glassy and breath falling to a wheezing whisper. Cauthrien pushes herself up from him and to her feet, standing back. Her gaze only grudgingly leaves the old Chevalier's face to look at Zevran, now standing as well with only the faintest of smirks touching his otherwise hard expression.

It's the tip of his right ear that's missing, and his index and middle finger of his right hand. He looks haggard, his braids coming undone and his eyes ringed in dark blue. There are bruises, too, everywhere she looks, and cuts. But he's standing steadily, and when he catches her gaze, he smiles.

"Well, _querida_. A job well done, yes?"

She feels herself smiling in return, though it feels awkward and lopsided. "... there are still two things left to do."

"Oh?"

"My sword-"

There's a rattle of metal and Janine is leaning over the balcony up to the hall Cauthrien has just come through. She holds a set of chain and plate and, more importantly, a two-handed sword taller than she is with a diamond-patterned hilt.

"You two!" Janine calls, jerking her head toward the door. "Come on, we've got them on the run! We're going to have Jader guards coming down on her heads before you can blink!"

Cauthrien starts for the steps while Zevran crouches again and begins to unbuckle Lorrain's gauntlet. Zevran slides the metal off and uses his dagger to lop off the same two fingers he is now lacking, pockets them in a pouch attached to his belt, and comes after her.

They're halfway up the steps when Zevran catches up and says, "and the other thing?"

Cauthrien shrugs. "I hope you know how to ride."

\--

"You know, I never asked." They're six hours of frantic riding outside of Jader, just drawing up on the trio of familiar wagons. Cauthrien swings her leg over and dismounts, regretting the lack of time to properly saddle the horses. Her entire body aches; riding for so long just after a brutal fight with no time to change clothing or even catch her breath has left her exhausted. Still, their triumph and Zevran's safe return have her in a good mood and she's almost smiling when she takes the reins from Zevran while he deftly slides down from his perch.

"Asked what?" he asks when his feet touch the ground and she passes the reins back.

"Why the queen sent us after Lorraine in the first place. I didn't care, at first, and then I forgot that I didn't know."

He shrugs. "He has been petitioning the Empress of Orlais to reclaim Ferelden, citing, I believe, that the Blight had been handled badly. Odd, that, when it was the shortest to ever happen."

Cauthrien stops walking and turns to face him. "... Well."

"Well?" He smiles and passes by her, his horse snorting.

"Well, it's a good thing he's dead, then," she says, shrugging. Zevran laughs and she hurries to catch up with him on long strides. "What?"

"Vengeance is a fine reason to kill, you know. I do not judge! We do not all need glorious excuses like _It is the archdemon_ or _I am getting paid a handsome sum_." He waves a hand. "Just keep in mind that vengeance should not dissuade planning, and I think we shall be good. In fact, _I_ should remember that."

Cauthrien doesn't say anything, the wild thrill of victory fading quickly. Instead, she takes the lead of his horse and walks them both to the first wagon, tethering them. They've made camp alongside a stream and the horses amble down to the water. Cauthrien watches.

Zevran sighs, just behind her left ear, and she startles.

" _Querida_ ," he says, and she blinks at the endearment, confused, "do you know what foolish thing _I_ did? Do you know how _I_ decided to throw our plans to the winds?"

"I assumed that Lorraine's men were waiting for you at the brothel," she responds, turning to him and leaning against the side of the wagon.

"Oh, no. No, I was far more foolish than that." He sits down at her feet, leaning back on his uninjured hand and smiling up at her. That smile unnerves her; it makes so little sense with what she knows, what she remembers, but it's as genuine as the smile he gave her the night in Ghislain's pass when he made her scream. "No, I went straight to our friend the Comte. Did you know, the man had a fleet of small dogs- only a foot high at the shoulders, and they all looked like miniature mabari? Saw them all in a herd through a doorway at one point.

"Anyway, I snuck in the back door, waltzed up the steps, traipsed about his gardens - such lovely gardens, aren't they? Though I suppose you did not have the time to appreciate them - and straight into the arms of his guards. Many of them. I did not even come close to my goal.

"No, I was too distracted, thinking about how I could not trust you and how, just a little, I would have liked to make him suffer in return for what he paid you and your family. I am a generous man, yes? But a foolish one, there is no doubt." He sighs.

She wonders how he can talk about this as if nothing has happened. Two and a half days of imprisonment and he comes out of it missing bits. At least, she thinks, he came out of it to the team's success. At least he came out of it.

Perhaps that's how he moves past it. Or perhaps, as she's beginning to understand, he simply is a superb actor who does not show much on the surface besides lecherous good nature.

"Lorraine sent me a letter," she says when she realizes he's stopped speaking and is looking up at her. She'd burned the thing before she and Janine had left the safehouse, but now regrets it - she would have liked to see Zevran's reaction to it.

She turns from him to fish in the back of the wagon for a waterskin, which she drinks deep from. Cauthrien is just about to toss it to him when she remembers his only free hand is injured, and then she leans forward to hand it to him. He takes it with a grin.

"Oh?"

"Yes, it said you were quite... uncommunicative."

Zevran laughs, that rolling, rollicking sound she's gotten quite used to and noted the absence of only too sharply these last few days. "Hm. Yes, I suppose that is a good word for it. Oh, I talked and talked when they asked me to! Just not about what he was interested in, I'm afraid."

"And that's why..." She motions to his hand, his ear.

Zevran shakes his head. "Oh, no. No, they tried the more usual tactics. Half-drownings, the rack, lashes. You are familiar with them, yes? I recall you mentioning that sometimes such things are necessary."

Her jaw clenches at the thought. It is true, though - even if this was not such a situation.

"At any rate," he continues, "we Crows, we are put through training much like that. I do not think our friend the Comte appreciated me laughing as if I were being tickled." He grins, waggling a brow.

"You are in high spirits," she comments, taking the waterskin when he offers it back and taking another large swallow. She glances up as one of the translators calls a greeting, lifting her hand in return. There will be more time for full reunions later, though, once a fire is going and food is ready. For now, she returns her attention to Zevran. "I didn't expect to find you like this."

"Ah, but fresh air is so good for the soul, _cariña_! Especially after you have spent a day trapped in a tiny little stone box." Here his expression falls and he pushes himself back to his feet, turning from her and drawing his blade. He plays with it in his uninjured hand, twisting it and twirling it. She can see just barely how the muscles in his neck tense and relax. He's thinking.

She does not press.

"Did you see it?" he finally asks.

"See what?"

"The sarcophagus. He took great pride in telling me where it came from. Grand Nevarra! Yes, a relic from before the Pentaghasts came to power. He wove such stories, that man. I did not listen most of the time; they were all boring. Of course, when one is being shoved into such a tomb and the lid is being slid into place with magic, one is a bit more attentive." He turns just a little and he catches the hard set of his lips, the slight furrow in his brow.

"The Crows teach you how to hold up under most tortures. They do not, however, teach you much about how to hold up under _nothing_."

Cauthrien frowns. "What do you mean, nothing?"

"Just what I said," he says with a sigh and a roll of his shoulders. She can see now how he keeps moving even more than normal, puts his joints through their full range of motion, steps lightly and rolls on the ball of his foot. "No light, no sound- no movement. Nothing but yourself. You spent a great deal of time with nothing but yourself, Cauthrien- imagine if you had not been able to soothe it with alcohol or with pacing or with whatever else it was you did to pass the time?"

She goes cold and still at the thought. She has tried to put that behind her, those shameful weeks spent with nothing but bottles, wallowing when she could have been watching for a subtle sign of order or favor from her queen.

And she has only the regrets of a year. When she looks at Zevran, she realizes she has no idea what he may have had to relive and sink into in that darkness.

"And so," he says finally, shaking whatever bleak memories have resurfaced, "I enjoy the fresh air now. The man responsible is dead, I am free, and I am only a little worse for wear." He summons a grin, seemingly from the Void itself, and she watches as the tension melts from his face.

Still, she glances back to his injuries once more. They're something she can't forget and can even less forgive herself for. If she'd only been faster; if she'd only stuck to the original plan.

"Your hand-"

"Unpleasant, but manageable." He chuckles. "You and the Orlesians do have a few things in common, you know. For instance, you grip your swords with your first two fingers. Ah, but in Antiva-" He shifts his sword to his injured hand, and she sees how his last two fingers sit on the hilt, controlling it with a light touch. When she reaches out and tries to push at the blade, he's able to keep it in place. "I will lose some of my strength, but it is not final."

"... And your ear?"

Zevran's grin remains in place as he leans in and sheathes his sword. "He has found perhaps one of the few elves who does not feel much attachment to his people. I am Antivan, not an elf- and I shall wear the notch as a battle scar. The ladies _love_ battle scars!"

She flushes faintly at the abrupt shift in topic, though it is welcome and familiar and a reminder that, despite the tension and fear of the last few days, they are still the same people who entered Jader. "You have plans for going out carousing again?"

"As soon as we return to Denerim! Unless-" He pauses and quirks a brow in question, sidling up to her until there is only heat between them. "Unless that would make you _jealous_ , Ser Cauthrien?"

"It-" She frowns, then pushes him away. He laughs, dancing back. "I have no claim on you."

"Ah, but if you would like to, I'll offer it up! For a time, at least."

"After all... of this?" she asks, waving a hand back in the direction of the city.

"Oh, I did not say I would care to _work_ with you again. But bed you? Tease you? Dodge your very muscled arms when you try and punch me? Oh! I could get used to that."

She can't help but look at him disbelievingly and snort. She, at least, can't forget how she'd driven him directly into Lorraine's maw.

He shrugs again, languidly sidling up to her once more and dropping an arm around her waist. "If you like, I could punish you. Do they do _lashes_ in the Ferelden army? I would be happy to play disciplinarian. If you'd like. Or even if you say you wouldn't like but actually would. You may be as coy as you wish!"

"You are an unhealthy little man," she says, flatly, though there's color rising to her cheeks. The determination of his pursuit is overwhelming. That he could still be interested after everything her actions have led to only cements her opinion that he has a truly obscene fetish for women like Georgiana Cousland. And, it seems, herself.

"Unhealthy! I assure you, Wynne has checked me over _several_ times. I take very good care of myself."

"I mean in that head of yours," she says. Her voice falters when he takes her hand with his uninjured one and brings it to his lips, playing his mouth along her fingers. She snatches it back and he grins.

"Is it the lashes? We can forget about the lashes."

"No, it's-" Cauthrien pauses, coloring still more strongly at the implication. "I'm not interested in the- lashes, but what I meant is-"

His hand snakes out again and takes hers, this time without protest. He pulls the tip of her index finger into her mouth and touches his tongue to it. She stops talking.

"I do not think," he says, slowly, when he pulls his tongue away, "that it is up to you who I pursue, only in the way you let me do it, yes? Do not question, and I can assure you a lovely time back to Denerim. And by then, who knows- you may have finally killed me, I may have sated my appetites, or..."

She doesn't want to hear whatever might come last, and so she grabs him close and presses her lips to his. This isn't the grand love she sometimes still dreams could have been between her and Loghain. There are no maps sprawled out beneath them, no armor gleaming in the practice yard, no bellowed orders adoringly obeyed. She will eventually grow unable to stand him, or he her, and yet-

A trip back to Denerim, pausing the sit along the banks of the River Dane and complain endlessly about the Orlesian penchant for ridiculous face paints and equally ridiculous lap-sized mabari-like dogs sounds lovely, and she looks forward to it with a lightness she hasn't felt since before the order to retreat came at Ostagar.

 

\--

[1] At last I have you at my feet, you Fereldan bitch!

[2] You will fuck my riding crop while you suck my cock because I am a Chevalier, and you are no better than a dog, you Fereldan bitch! I will tame you!

[3] _Nebenhut_ , "near ward", from [Liechtenauer's](http://www.thehaca.com/essays/StancesIntro.htm) German longsword (two-handed sword) fencing system. Assume German is "Alamarri", i.e., the original language spoken in Ferelden

[4] _That_ is for putting me in that box.


End file.
